The Pygmalion Effect
If you expect the worst, you'll probably get it.
Key takeaway:
As researched by Mr. Livingston, some managers/teachers always treat their subordinates and students in a way that leads to superior performance. But most managers/teachers unintentionally treat their subordinates/students in a way that leads to lower performance than they are capable of achieving.
Expectations Influence Performance
A few years back, I spent some time learning Portuguese at a setup that was modular and aimed at foreigners visiting Brazil.
During our first class, after each of us went through our background and introduction, our professor picked on a few of them and explained how they all reminded him of successful students. He went on to show pictures of some of them and how they ended up staying in Brazil and/or having a great career.
Almost every student that he deliberately picked on did well and graduated with flying colors. Whereas the rest of us did OK. It wasn’t until a couple of years back I stumbled upon the reason why this had happened.
The Pygmalion effect
The Pygmalion effect is a phenomonon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area and low expectations lead to worse.
In the above instance:
The Professor’s beliefs based on his experience teaching similar students from the past influenced his action of associating success with new students.
This impacted the beliefs of the new students causing them to take their performance character strengths seriously.
Their success further reinforced the Professor’s beliefs.
Whereas the Professor unintentionally treated the rest of the students in a way that led to lower performance than they were capable of achieving.
The Pygmalion effect is an indication that others can bend our “reality” either on purpose or by accident. Checking on our assumptions from time-to-time and remaining mindful of the potentional influence of our own expections help us increase the odds of achieving superior performance across the board.
Until Next Time,
Keshav :)