The Pygmalion effect or ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, for short, is when something becomes true simply because it was wanted and expected. So the more we want and wait for something to happen, the more likely it is to happen.
So where does the Pygmalion effect get its name?
In fact, the Pygmalion effect takes its name from a character in mythology. According to this mythology, a sculptor named Pygmalion decides to sculpt the woman of his dreams one day, after a long effort, he completes the sculpture and a legendary female figure emerges. In fact, this woman is so beautiful that Pygmalion thinks that no other woman in the world can be this beautiful, and he falls in love with this woman day by day. Therefore, because he is lifeless, he begins to suffer deeply and make vows. Legend has it that Aphrodite accepts her offering and revives the statue. And the happy ending: they get married to Pygmalion, the animated fantasy, and they are happy. 😊
This effect has been described by many scientists in history, but the most appropriate definition for the mythological story I just mentioned was made by Robert K. Merton, who is known as the father of modern sociology. Merton defines the pygmalion effect as ‘beliefs that become reality over time’. We can say that Merton, working in the fields of cultural and social structure, introduced the terms role model, unintended consequences and self-fulfilling prophecy to the literature. In a study conducted in an office environment, he concluded that our expectation towards an event or person would be self-affirmed even though it was actually shaped by our own behavior. To clarify with an example, a person who thinks that he is not respected in the workplace even though there is no such situation in reality, perceives almost every behavior of his colleagues against him as an attack due to this perception, and after a while, he really does it to the person with the energy and attitudes he gives back to them. makes it disrespectful. As a result, the prophecy is self-fulfilling.
According to Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, high expectations lead to better performance, while low expectations lead to worse performance, so in both cases it leads to self-fulfilling prophecy. To prove these thoughts, they conducted a study in the educational environment. In the study, a general aptitude test is given to a class of students, and teachers are also included in this experiment. Teachers are given the results of the top 20% of the class, but these results do not reflect the truth, that is, those 20% were chosen completely randomly. But teachers think that these students have high IQ. At the end of the term, these students are given a general aptitude test again, and it is observed that the students in this 20% actually increase their performance. According to Rosenthal and Jacobson, the reason for this is entirely the expectations that teachers have about those students. In other words, teachers approached the students who they thought would be more successful, more patient and self-sacrificing, and conveyed their positive expectations to them with gestures and facial expressions or tone of voice and various ways. Teachers who did this completely unconsciously and involuntarily, in this way, positively influenced the perceptions of those students towards themselves and encouraged them to work harder. As a result, if you let someone know that you believe that person will succeed, they are more likely to succeed. In other words, we can say that high expectations bring high success and performance.
If we make a final conclusion based on all this information, it is an undeniable fact that our expectations shape the behaviors and attitudes of the person in front of us, but there is a point we should not overlook, which is not to exceed the capacity of the person in front of us. So yes, let’s keep our expectations high, but in a dosed and balanced way. In addition to these, there is no difference in terms of pygmalion effect between our expectations from other people and our expectations from ourselves. Our beliefs about ourselves affect our behavior, and our behavior affects our performance.
If you believe you can succeed, you will succeed; if you believe you cannot, you cannot.
