PYGMALION EFFECT AND HOW IT AFFECTS STUDENTS' LIVES
Before trying to understand what this word means, let me tell you a story. This is a story about a basketball coach and two students and how Pygmalion Effect had affected the lives of those students.
THE STORY
It was the start of a new academic year and every student had to sign up for an extra-curricular activity. Some of the students signed up for art and music while others signed up for sports. Only two students signed up for the basketball team, “Tristan” and “William”.
When the coach saw Tristan, he felt that he resembled a famous basketball player while William reminded him of an annoying kid during his childhood. The coach thinks Tristan could be a better player and is always happy to see him. He encourages him and he doesn’t scold him for his mistakes but rather teaches him how to perform better.
But when the coach sees William, he isn’t very happy and doesn’t give him the same attention as he gave Tristan. He doesn’t notice William when he plays well nor does he give him advice on how to improve his game because he believes that William won’t come to practice regularly.
What Tristan thinks about his coach is that he believes in him and is always ready to help him improve during practice; he gives him advice on how to improve and focus on his game. Thus Tristan’s respect for his coach increases and he wants to perform his best for the coach. This makes him come regularly to practice and increases his love and passion for the game.
What William thinks about his coach is that he doesn’t believe in him and that is why he never lets him play during important matches. He feels that the coach doesn’t believe that he could be a basketball player. This leads to losing his interest in the game and his respect for the coach. He stops coming to practice regularly.
Because of his newfound interest in the game, Tristan always comes to practice regularly on time and he never misses his practice session. He is always motivated because he wants to win for his coach and his team. Thus whenever he plays, he always gives his best and wins trophies and medals.
But on the other hand, William doesn’t come to practice and finds reasons to stay at home. He starts to become lazy and doesn’t focus on anything.
On seeing Tristan, the coach believes what he thought about him was right and is happy that he has become the player he imagined him to be. Since William has stopped coming to practice, the coach believes that what he had assumed about him when he first saw William was true. He is happy that he didn’t put much effort into William as he did with Tristan.
So what is the moral of the story? Do you believe what the coach did was right? Is Tristan better than William like the coach believes?
To answer all this, we have to first understand what the PYGMALION EFFECT is
“Higher Expectation Leads To Higher Performance”
Pygmalion effect is also known as “The Rosenthal Experiment” named after the research of Robert Rosenthal. In his research, he said “When we expect certain behavior of others we are more likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”
Pygmalion effect is a cycle consisting of four stages, they are:
1) Your beliefs influence your action.
2) Your actions impact their beliefs about themselves.
3) Their beliefs about themselves cause their action towards you.
4) Their actions reinforce your beliefs about them.
Both Tristan and William were no different from one another in terms of their knowledge about the game. The only problem was that the coach believed that one could play better than the other. To better understand, let us find those four stages in the story:
The coach’s beliefs influenced his action towards the two of them.
Since he believed Tristan is a better player, he had subconsciously put efforts to make sure that his expectations came true. This is why he didn’t put as much effort into William as with Tristan because he didn’t expect William to be a better player.
Thus the actions of the coach impacted the beliefs of those two about themselves
Since the coach had put more effort into Tristan, Tristan believed that the coach thinks he could become a better player and starts believing it himself. While William doesn’t believe in himself since he feels that the coach doesn’t think he could become a better player.
The beliefs about themselves influenced their action towards the coach
This is the reason why Tristan wanted to give his best for the coach and came to practice regularly while William stopped coming to practice and lost his love for the game.
Whenever a user slides onto the next question, a small bubble shows down below, which holds the number of the next question as well as the color of the next card. The satisfaction in sliding the cards just to watch the bubbles slide is what I wanted to achieve in this type of interaction.
Their action reinforced the beliefs of the coach
The coach thinks what he assumed was right because their actions which were influenced by his beliefs had reinforced his thoughts about them (i.e.) how he believed William would not become a player made William quit while Tristan became a better player.
HOW CAN WE AVOID THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF THIS EFFECT?
Do not forget that this is a circle.
Yes, other people’s opinions of you may impact you but your opinion about yourself can impact the way other people view you, which in turn will continue to impact you. You always have a hand and a say in your own life. Make yourself the beginning of the circle.
Confidence has a huge effect on performance and your confidence is heavily influenced by other people whose opinion you respect.
Always believe in yourself no matter what others tell you, andcan help you feel confident about yourself.
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