Work psychology: the Pygmalion effect to boost your teams

By Maëlys De Santis

Published: 8 November 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 environment of talent management. We describe the origins of this concept, and how it was born out of the results of an experiment conducted first on rats, then on schoolchildren.

Knowing about the Pygmalion effect can be another key to being a good manager: knowing how to adapt your behaviour 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, whereby the judgement made by a person or by ourselves influences and conditions our behaviour.

The simple fact that a person believes in their skills and abilities improves their chances of achieving a goal and their results.

This applies both to a third party who believes in an individual's abilities and 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, behaviour and actions that motivate them and put them 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 conceptualised 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 person's life.

Origin and etymology

Pygmalion was an ancient Cypriot sculptor and son of Athena and Hephaestus. He devoted 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 festival dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Aphrodite agreed to bring the statue to life, and Pygmalion married her.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, 1890

The Pygmalion effect vs. the Golem effect

The Golem effect is the opposite of the Pygmalion effect, its negative counterpart. It is 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.

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

Place some 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 of voice.
As the weeks go by, you'll notice that the second pot rots, while the first has stayed put.

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

Psychologist Dr Rosenthal's experiment

Experiment no. 1: rat experiment

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

🐁 Two groups of students were given rats to study:

group 1 received "intelligent" rats;
group 2 were given "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 perform better in the maze.
the 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 more intelligent actually performed better in the experiment. In truth, it was only the students' perceptions that changed. This is the Rosenthal effect.

Experiment 2: experiment on 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 pupils". The stated aim was to measure children's abilities by having them take IQ tests.

Conduct of the experiment:

All the pupils were given tests.
The results were "accidentally" passed on to the teaching staff, but the results were not really those of the children.
The marks were, in fact, awarded randomly: 20% of the pupils were given an over-rated mark.

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 pupils whose teachers thought they were more gifted actually obtained better results.

Applications of the Pygmalion effect

In everyday life

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

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

©️ Kolibri coaching

Positive behaviour towards someone can have a major beneficial impact on :

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

If speaking with love to plants helps them to grow, imagine what speaking with love 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 Colour of Emotions , directed by Tate Taylor

A number of factors come into play, such as

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

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 they approach things can vary drastically and influence employee behaviour.

Ultimately, the logic is the same as with schoolchildren.

Tell your staff that they are not competent enough and that you have no choice but to check their work, and they will not 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: the objectives will be achieved, and the team's overall performance will be better!