the pygmalion effect

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, refers to situations in which students perform better than other students simply because they are expected to do so. The effect is named after George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, in which a professor makes a bet that he can teach a poor flower girl to speak and act like an upper-class lady, and is successful.(you might remember the movie My Fair Lady)

The Pygmalion effect requires a student to internalize the expectations of their superiors. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and in this respect, students with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly

AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT
iN Jane Elliott's blue-eyed versus brown-eyed discrimination exercise, third graders were divided based on eye color. One group was given preference and regarded as "superior" because of their eye color, with the other group repeatedly being considered inferior in intelligence and learning ability. On the second day of the experiment, the groups were completely reversed, with those oppressed against one day, being regarded as superior the next.

Elliott gave spelling tests to both groups on each day of the experiment. The students scored very low on the day they were racially "inferior" and very high on the day they were considered racially "superior."



I HAVE ALWAYS HAD HIGH EXPECTATIONS OF MY STUDENTS - AND TREAT THEM AS "SUPERIOR"...
I am still waiting for the results....


SO DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE PYGMALION EFFECT?...WILL IT ALWAYS WORK?