Work psychology: the Pygmalion effect to boost your teams

By Maëlys De Santis

Published: November 8, 2024

What is the Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal and Jacobson effect? The aim of this article is to give a complete definition of this psychological concept, which can be adapted to the professional world of talent management. We describe the origins of this concept, how it came about through the results of an experiment conducted first on rats, then on schoolchildren.

Knowing the Pygmalion effect can be an additional key to being a good manager: knowing how to adapt your behavior to overcome prejudice and boost your team's performance is a strength.

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Pygmalion effect: definition

Let's try to understand this concept with a simple definition. What is the Pygmalion effect? In psychology, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which a person's or our own judgment influences and conditions our behavior.

The simple fact that a subject believes in his or her skills and abilities improves his or her chances of achieving a goal, as well as his or her results.

This applies to a third party who believes in an individual's abilities, as well as to an individual who believes in his or her own abilities. In both cases, the individual in question will feel confident and motivated by a positive state of mind, behavior and actions that motivate him or her and put him or her in a good frame of mind.

The more you believe in yourself, the more likely you are to succeed.

The Pygmalion effect is also known as the Rosenthal effect, after the psychologist who studied and conceptualized it, or the Rosenthal and Jacobson effect - we'll see why later.

Remind you of the Coué method? The Pygmalion effect is similar, in the sense that the power of thought and autosuggestion, in the case of the Coué method, is supposed to bring about concrete positive results in a subject's life.

Origin and etymology

Pygmalion was an ancient Cypriot sculptor, son of Athena and Hephaestus. He had dedicated himself to celibacy, revolting first against the Prophetides, prostitutes living on the island of Cyprus, and then against the institution of marriage itself.

He sculpted a marble statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with her after a feast dedicated to Aphrodite, goddess of love. Aphrodite agreed to bring the statue to life, and Pygmalion married her.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, 1890

Pygmalion effect vs. Golem effect

The Golem effect is the opposite of the Pygmalion effect, its negative counterpart. It's another self-fulfilling prophecy, this time from Jewish mythology.

The Golem effect is defined as follows: low expectations of an individual insidiously lead to lower performance on his or her part.

You may have heard of this experiment with two pots of rice:

Place rice in two different pots.
To the first, say kind words in a soft, cheerful voice.
To the second, be unpleasant, even insulting, in a threatening tone.
As the weeks go by, you'll notice that the second pot rots, while the first hasn't budged.

This experience was illustrated in a scene from Guillaume Canet's film Les Petits mouchoirs. Sound familiar?

Psychologist Dr. Rosenthal's experiment

Experiment 1: rat experiment

Robert Rosenthal and his team worked with a group of students conducting an experiment and studying the behavior of rats in a maze learning context.

🐁 Two groups of students were given rats to study:

group 1 received "intelligent" rats;
group 2 received "dumb" rats.

🐁 What they didn't know was that the rats were all the same: none were smarter or dumber than their fellow rats. As a result:

the students in group 1 stimulated the rats more, thinking them smarter than the others and therefore able to achieve better results in the maze.
students in group 2 behaved in the opposite way, and left feeling defeated about their rats' abilities.

Conclusion of the experiment: the rats that the students thought were smarter actually performed better in the experiment. In truth, it was only the students' perceptions that changed. This is the Rosenthal effect.

Experiment 2: Children

The previous experiment was reproduced on children. It was conducted by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson at the Oak School in San Francisco, USA.

The researchers posed as a research team from Harvard University whose object of study was "the late blooming of students". The stated aim is to measure children's abilities by having them take IQ tests.

How the experiment works :

All pupils are tested.
The results are transmitted "by accident" to the teaching staff, but the results are not really those of the children.
Grades were, in fact, assigned randomly: 20% of pupils were given an over-rated grade.

At the end of the school year, R. Rosenthal and L. Jacobson administered a new assessment to the pupils. The results were the same as those of the rat experiment: the students whose teachers thought they were more gifted actually performed better.

Applications of the Pygmalion effect

In everyday life

The Pygmalion effect is a lever for achieving your goals, improving your self-image, believing in your abilities and making others believe in theirs.

It creates a virtuous circle of positive, benevolent behavior towards others, and above all, towards ourselves.

©️ Kolibri coaching

A positive attitude towards someone can have great beneficial consequences on :

self-confidence,
self-esteem
motivation,
self-image and that of others,
willpower,
the means we use to achieve a goal,
our results, etc.

If speaking lovingly to plants helps them grow, imagine what speaking lovingly does to humans.

Are your teams lacking motivation? Stimulate your staff with these 50 quotes on teamwork:

At school

Education in general, and school in particular, is one of the most obvious areas where the Pygmalion effect can be applied.

A teacher who believes in his or her pupils and thinks that they all have the same chance of success unconsciously gives them that same chance, by behaving in the same way with all pupils.

Scene from the film The Color of Feelings , directed by Tate Taylor

Several factors come into play, such as

the general environment created by the teaching staff,
the place given to each student in the class (time and attention),
the opportunity given to students to express themselves,
the proportion of rewards and punishments distributed.

This also applies to training in general, including vocational training.

In management

It's natural for all managers to have expectations of their team members. But the way in which they go about it can vary drastically and influence employee behavior.

Ultimately, the logic is the same as with schoolchildren.

Tell your staff that they're not good enough and that you have no choice but to check their work, and they won't give their best. They'll be frustrated that they're not making progress, and you'll be disappointed by their lack of autonomy or skills.

Conversely, show your team that you believe in them, and they'll do everything to prove you right. Bonus: you'll achieve your objectives, and the team's overall performance will improve!