Pygmalion effect

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The Pygmalion effect (after the mythological figure Pygmalion ) is used when there is an (anticipated) positive assessment of a person (e.g. a student) by another person (e.g. a teacher with whom the student is gifted ) later course confirmed. In the student / teacher example, this is made possible by the fact that the teacher communicates his expectations to the students in a subtle way, e.g. B. through personal attention, the waiting time for a student answer, through the frequency and strength of praise and criticism or through high performance requirements.

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore F. Jacobson demonstrated experimentally that a teacher who is suggested that some students are particularly talented unconsciously encourages them in such a way that they actually improve their performance in the end.

The classic experiment by Rosenthal and Jacobson

In 1965, the American psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore F. Jacobson investigated teacher-student interactions in a primary school in a field experiment . Although it was an elementary school, the school had three classes. There was a medium train, a fast train, and a slow train. This is not uncommon in public elementary schools in the United States.

The teachers were tricked into believing that the children's performance potential should be assessed on the basis of a scientific test. According to the teachers, this test would identify the 20 percent of students in a school class who were on the verge of a development spurt. In the case of these bloomers (blooming) or spurters (sprinters), special increases in performance can be expected in the following school year. In reality, however, the 20 percent of students were randomly selected by lot without the teachers' knowledge.

The test did not measure the performance potential of the students, but their IQ. Eight months after the first IQ test, it was repeated with all primary school students. Interestingly, the IQ increase in the twenty percent of students whose performance potential was classified as particularly high (experiment group) was significantly greater than in students who did not identify any particular performance improvement potential (control group). (P. 118). Because apart from informing the teachers about the supposed performance improvement potential, all other conditions were kept constant, the only reason for the actual performance improvement of the students may have been the expectations of the teachers towards these students.

After one year it was found that the children from the group of bloomers were able to increase their IQ much more than children from the control group . The effect was particularly strong in first and second grade children. The students on the middle train of the Oak School had the greatest IQ gains. Overall, 45 percent of the children selected as bloomers were able to increase their IQ by 20 or more points, and 20 percent were able to increase it by 30 or more points. It was interesting that the IQ increases were most pronounced in the children who had a particularly attractive appearance. It was also noticeable that the character of the so-called bloomers was judged more positively by the teachers.

Criticism of the classic experiment

The psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike criticized the methodology of the study by Rosenthal and Jacobsen: The IQ tests they use are not suitable for younger children. However, it was in this group that the highest IQ gains were found. In addition, the average IQ value of a class in the area of logical thinking (original: reasoning) was at the level of intellectual disability (<70). The improvement observed in the children can be explained solely by the regression towards the center . Snow (1995) pointed out that there were 5 students with incredibly high IQ gains (17–110, 18–122, 133–202, 111–208, and 113–211). If these students are excluded from the analyzes, the Pygmalion effect disappears.

Various replications and meta-studies could not conclusively clarify whether the expectations of teachers can lead to an IQ increase in students or not. A meta-study shows that the overall effect is weak. The strongest effect occurs in the few experiments that manipulate the teachers' expectations in the first two weeks of the school year, when they do not yet know and assess the students well. Even these experiments, however, do not show a strong influence of teacher expectations on students' IQ.

Forerunner of the experiment

The experiment on the Pygmalion effect was inspired by a laboratory experiment in which Robert Rosenthal and KL Fode demonstrated that the expectations of investigators have an influence on the outcome of the experiment. This proven effect is known in social psychology as the Rosenthal effect or the experimenter effect . The experiment on the Pygmalion effect was an attempt by Robert Rosenthal together with Lenore F. Jacobson to show that such self-fulfilling prophecies are relevant beyond the methodological criticism in science.

Similar experiments

Rosenthal's results have been replicated over many years and in many different schools. About 40 percent of the repetitions of the experiment produced the expected results. If the teachers knew the children well and had already formed their own prejudices, the expectation effect was reduced.

According to Heinz Heckhausen , the pygmalion effect only occurs under the following conditions:

  1. the student is a so-called refusal to perform or underperformers , so he is currently doing less than his abilities allow him,
  2. the teacher has so far underestimated the ability of the student,
  3. the student has also adopted the teacher's assessment, i.e. internalized it .

In psychiatry, the psychologist David Rosenhan carried out experiments comparable to those of Rosenthal between 1968 and 1973 ( Rosenhan experiment ).

Differentiation from similar effects

The Pygmalion effect according to Shaw means when a person from a lower class is mistaken for a member of the upper class and treated accordingly. The name goes back to the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw . “You see, if you disregard what everyone easily acquires: dressing, proper pronunciation and so on, then the difference between a lady and a flower girl is really not in their behavior, but in how you behave towards them . "

The Pygmalion effect is to be distinguished from similar self-fulfilling prophecies, whereby the empirical distinction is often not clearly possible, if the effects are measurable at all. If the behavior adjustment does not take place in the context of an asymmetrical relationship with a specific reference person endowed with special authority (e.g. test director, supervisor, teacher, doctor ), but in response to general social prejudices, one speaks of the Andorra effect .

A special case of the Pygmalion Effect, in which a person's own expectation of himself, which is increased by the expectations of an authority figure (superior), is regarded as a decisive, mediating factor, is called the Galatea Effect . A negative self-fulfilling expectation is also referred to as the golem effect.

Newer approaches, which in recent years have increasingly come into the focus of (especially neuro) scientific investigations, lead (among other things) to the above. Phenomena based on the effect of active (explicit or implicit) stereotypes .

See also

literature

  • Robert Rosenthal, Lenore Jacobson: Teachers 'Expectancies: Determinants Of Pupils' IQ Gains. In: Psychological Reports. Volume 19, 1966, pp. 115-118.
  • Robert Rosenthal, Lenore Jacobson: Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York 1968; German: Pygmalion in class. Teacher expectations and intelligence development of the students (translated by Ingeborg Brinkmann [among others]). Beltz, Weinheim 1983, ISBN 3-407-18267-8 .
  • Robert Rosenthal: Critiquing Pygmalion: A 25-year perspective. In: Current Directions in Psychological Science. Volume 4, 1995, pp. 171f.
  • J. Sterling Livingston: Motivation: Pygmalion's Law. In: Harvard Manager. 12th year, 1990, pp. 90-99.
  • Paul Watzlawick (ed.): The invented reality . How do we know what we think we know. Posts on constructivism. Piper TB 4742, Munich / Zurich 2010 (first edition 1981), ISBN 978-3-492-24742-9 (p. 97, chapter: Self-fulfilling prophecies ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rosenthal, Jacobson: Pygmalion in the classroom . Beltz, Weinheim 1971
  2. ↑ Rosenthal: Pygmalion. Page 216
  3. ↑ Rosenthal: Pygmalion. Page 217
  4. ↑ Rosenthal: Pygmalion. Page 218
  5. ^ Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert: Social Psychology. Pearson Studium, Munich 2008, Figure 3.6, p. 68
  6. ↑ Rosenthal: Pygmalion. Page 122
  7. ↑ a b Prof. Dr. E. Todt: Educational psychology for students of the teaching profession suggestion and suggestibility. University of Giessen.
  8. ↑ Thorndike, RL (1968). Reviewed work: Pygmalion in the classroom by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson. American Educational Research Journal, 5 (4), 708-711.
  9. ^ Snow, RE (1995) Pygmalion and intelligence? Current Directions in PsychologicalScience. 4: 169-71.
  10. ↑ Jussim, L. (2017). Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 40 . Available at: http://labs.psychology.illinois.edu/~acimpian/reprints/jussim_BBS.pdf
  11. ↑ Raudenbush, SW (1984). Magnitude of teacher expectancy effects on pupil IQ as a function of the credibility of expectancy induction: A synthesis of findings from 18 experiments. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76 (1), 85-97. doi: 10.1037 / 0022-0663.76.1.85
  12. ^ E. Aronson, TD Wilson, RM Akert: Social Psychology . 4th edition. Pearson Studium, 2004, ISBN 3-8273-7084-1 , p. 23
  13. ^ Ian Needham: Nursing Planning in Psychiatry . Recom, 3rd edition 1996, ISBN 978-3-89752-034-9 , page 73.
  14. ↑ George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion. In: Classical Pieces. Translated by Siegfried Trebitsch. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin / Frankfurt 1950
  15. ↑ M. Johns, T. Schmader, A. Martens: Knowing is half the battle: teaching stereotype threat as a means of improving women's math performance. In: Psychological Science. Volume 16, March 2005, pp. 175-179, PMID 15733195
  16. ↑ M. Wraga, JM Shephard, JA Church, S. Inati, SM Kosslyn: Imagined rotations of self versus objects: an fMRI study. In: Neuropsychologia. Volume 43, 2005, pp. 1351-1361, PMID 15949519
  17. ↑ AC Krendl, YES Richeson , WM Kelley, TF Heatherton: The negative Consequences of threat: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying women's underperformance in math. In: Psychological Science. Volume 18, February 2008, pp. 168-175, PMID 18271865