Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion effect describes how higher expectations from a teacher or leader can lead to higher performance.

Where it comes from

The name borrows from Ovid's sculptor, who fell in love with his own statue. In the mid-1960s, psychologist Robert Rosenthal and school principal Lenore Jacobson told teachers at a California elementary school that certain pupils were about to "bloom" intellectually. The pupils had been picked at random. By the end of the year, the named children, especially in first and second grade, had gained more on an IQ test than their classmates.¹ J. Sterling Livingston carried the idea into management in Harvard Business Review in 1969.² Dov Eden and Abraham Shani later found a similar effect among adult trainees in the Israel Defense Forces: trainees whose instructors had been told to expect high potential performed better.³

Where it goes wrong

The effect is often told as if expectation alone works magic. Reviews find it real and usually modest, larger for some groups, such as lower-achieving students.⁴ Expectations work through behavior: warmer climate, more feedback, more challenging tasks.

¹ Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

² Livingston, J. S. (1969). Pygmalion in management. Harvard Business Review, 47(4), 81–89.

³ Eden, D., & Shani, A. B. (1982). Pygmalion goes to boot camp: Expectancy, leadership, and trainee performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(2), 194–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.67.2.194

⁴ Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131–155. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0902_3

Further reading: Eden, D. (1990). Pygmalion in management: Productivity as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lexington Books.