The Pygmalion effect is the phenomenon in which higher expectations placed on a person lead to improved performance from that person, operating as a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the expectation itself, and the way it changes how the expecting party treats the person, brings about the very outcome expected. It has been studied most extensively in classrooms, where a teacher's elevated expectations of a student have been shown to measurably raise that student's performance, and also in workplace and military training settings. Psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson gave the effect its landmark demonstration in 1968, in a study in which teachers were falsely told that certain randomly selected students were about to show unusual intellectual growth.
Facts
Core ClaimWhen someone in a position of authority genuinely expects better performance from a person, that expectation itself, through changed treatment, tends to produce the better performance. 1 First Described Year Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Co-originated the effect with Robert Rosenthal.
The founding 1968 classroom study that first demonstrated the effect.
Co-originated the effect with Lenore Jacobson.
In Branch
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