This year, Robert Rosenthal, a Harvard University professor, and Leonore Jacobson, an elementary school principal in San Francisco, published ‘Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development’, which eventually would become a classic in the study of teacher-student interactions.

Rosenthal–Jacobson study Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson’s study showed that, if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children, then the children’s performance was enhanced. Rosenthal argued that biased expectancies could affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies.

The Pygmalion effect shows that teachers’ expectations of their students have a strong effect on student performance. If a teacher increases their expectations of their student’s performance, this will result in better student performance.

His purpose was to figure out what would ensue if teachers would react differently towards certain students if told that a select number of students were expected to learn more information and more quickly than the pupils in their class.

The result of this experiment was identical with what Rosenthal and Jacobson found in their experiment: Based on no truth, Schrank told teachers that their classes were made up of students of particularly high or low learning potential.

The work of Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968), among others, shows that teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively.

In other words, teacher expectancy effect is something that ties closely to the social development of the students as a whole. Teacher expectancy effect is defined as “the impact that a teacher’s expectations about a student’s performance may have on the student’s actual achievements” (Schaefer & Lamm, 1995, p.

In teach, the Pygmalion effect occurs when teachers treat students different because of their expectations. For example, students with low expectations may receive less attention or less detailed feedback. The reason for such is that students with low expectations are meeting them with incorrect answers.

There are a few ways to combat this mindset and work towards building a brilliant team.

1. Focus on Excellence. Sounds like an easy one until your realize that its not about your team, but about you.
2. Include rather than exclude. Job interviews are notorious for being exclusionary rather than inclusive.
3. Avoid the Golem.

Teachers Act On Expectations Rosenthal’s Four-Factor theory, described in the often-recommended training video, Productivity and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Pygmalion Effect (CRM Films, 1987), identifies climate, feedback, input, and output as the factors teachers use to convey expectations.

Methodological precautions can guard against the Rosenthal effect….3. The Rosenthal Effect

1. Design the experiment properly.
2. Have clear rules and procedures in place.
3. Make sure behaviors are clearly defined.
4. Set a time frame for: data collection, for the duration of the experiment, and for experimental parts.

While the Pygmalion Effect is certainly true, it does not mean that you can just expect whatever you want from someone else. Too high expectations can become burdening and overwhelming for the person, and might even result in the opposite of the desired outcome.

Shaw took his title from the ancient Greek legend of the famous sculptor named Pygmalion who could find nothing good in women, and, as a result, he resolved to live out his life unmarried. However, he carved a statue out of ivory that was so beautiful and so perfect that he fell in love with his own creation.

The major theme of Pygmalion is the social divisions that existed then in 18 century England and how it didn’t really matter that if a person was born high or low class; it all depends on yourself and your character. Here, Shaw took a sly dig at the nobles who thought they were nobles because of birth.

He described them as not giving him anything because he was unworthy. He complained that middle-class morality was “just an excuse for never giving me anything.” Doolittle professed his deservingness, which was based on his need.

In the story of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, Professor Higgins says: “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” He expresses this frustration as he is attempting to teach Elisa Doolittle how to speak and act correctly. The solution in Shaw’s story was to attempt to remake a woman in the image of a man.