Pygmalion is a hero from Greek mythology, who was an amazing sculptor and king of Cyprus. According to legend, one day he created such a beautiful statue that he loved her more than life. He appealed to the gods that they revive her, and they fulfilled his request. In psychology, the Pygmalion effect (or the Rosenthal effect) is a common phenomenon in which a person firmly convinced of the correctness of information involuntarily acts in such a way that he receives actual confirmation.
Pygmalion effect - experiment
The effect of Pygmalion is also called the psychological effect of justifying expectations. It was proved that this phenomenon is very common.
The scientist succeeded in proving the correctness of this statement with the help of a classical experiment. School teachers were informed that among the students there are able and not very capable children. In fact, they were all on the same level of knowledge. But because of the teacher's expectations, the difference arose: a group that was declared as more capable, received higher marks in testing than the one that was declared less capable.
Surprisingly, the expectations of the teachers were incredibly transferred to the students, and forced them to perform work better or worse than usual. In the book of Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, the experiment was first described with the manipulation of the expectations of teachers. Surprisingly, this affected even the results of the IQ test.
The result of the experiment proved that this gives a positive effect for the performance of "weak" children from disadvantaged families. It is proved that they learn worse because the expectations of teachers regarding their academic performance are negative.
In addition to such experiments, a lot of research was carried out, which also proved the existence of the social and psychological effect of Pygmalion. This effect is particularly strong in men's teams - in the army, in the cadet corps, in factories and mining enterprises. This is especially true in people who do not believe in leadership, but who do not expect anything good themselves.
How to explain the Pygmalion effect?
There are two versions that explain the Pygmalion effect . The scientist Cooper believes that teachers who are set up for different results, say different words to the students of the two groups, resort to affective communication and assessments. Seeing this, the students themselves are adjusted to different results.
Researcher Bar-Tal argues that everything depends on the fact that teachers begin to think that the failure of a "weak" group has stable causes. They behave accordingly, giving verbal and non-verbal signals indicating unbelief in this group, which generates such an effect.
The Pygmalion Effect in Management
In practice, the Pygmalion effect is that the expectations of managers can influence the results of the work of subordinates. There is a tendency in which it becomes obvious: managers who rate employees highly receive results higher than those who believe that all subordinates are short-sighted idlers. Depending on the outcome to which the top manager is set, subordinates acted.
The Pygmalion effect in life
Often you can hear the phrase that behind every successful man is a woman who made him that way. This can also be considered a successful example of the Pygmalion effect.
A family should not be a burden, a person should take strength and inspiration from his family for his social and career life. Only with the proper attitude within the family does a person reach heights. However, this does not give you the right to blame your relatives for failures: this is only an additional factor, and the main leader of a person's life is himself. And it's up to him to decide whether he will be successful, rich and happy, or not.