self fulfilling prophecy school experiment

The Pygmalion Effect: Definition & Examples

Ayesh Perera

B.A, MTS, Harvard University

Ayesh Perera, a Harvard graduate, has worked as a researcher in psychology and neuroscience under Dr. Kevin Majeres at Harvard Medical School.

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Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

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Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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The Pygmalion effect refers to a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to improved performance in others. First described by Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1968, it gets its name from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, where a sculptor’s great expectations for his statue result in it coming to life. Essentially, when teachers or leaders expect more of others, those individuals perform better.

Key Takeaways

• The Pygmalion effect, also known as the Rosenthal effect, denotes a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations induce improvements in performance in a certain field (Mitchell & Daniels, 2003).
• “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)
• It is a positive form of self-fulfilling prophecy wherein the objects [the targeted individuals] of projections internalize the optimistic labels they receive and succeed to conform to those labels. This implies that sanguine expectations on a leader’s part could lead to improved performance by followers.

History of the Pygmalion Effect

Robert Rosenthal discovered the Pygmalion effect in a groundbreaking study in 1964. In introducing the concept in their book titled ‘ Pygmalion in the Classroom ,’ Rosenthal and his colleague Lenore Jacobson drew on the Greek myth of Pygmalion in ‘ Metamorphoses’ by Ovid (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968).

Pygmalion, in the story, was a sculptor from Cyprus who ended up falling in love with an ivory statue of a woman he had made (Ovid, 2008).

Enamored by the statue’s beauty, he begs the gods for a wife resembling its likeness. The gods respond by granting Pygmalion’s request. The statue subsequently comes to life.

Centuries later, George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion would convey the point as well. In it, Liza explains: “the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated” (Shaw, 1912).

She further points out: “I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will” (Shaw, 1912).

Pygmalion Effect Experiment

Robert Rosenthal subscribed to the hypothesis that expectations can engender self-fulfilling prophecies by inducing corresponding performance.

He chose an elementary school in California for his study, and administered an IQ examination to each student (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968).

Having tested all the children’s IQ, the researchers selected a sample of children at random and informed the teachers that these were children of high academic potential.

Following the test, the teachers were given the names of the ‘intellectual bloomers,’ but no scores were disclosed. At the end of the school year, all the students retook the test. While the overall scores had risen, the purported ‘intellectual bloomers’ had improved the most.

The evidence seemed to indicate that the teachers’ expectations constituted a contributory variable in the student outcomes, especially in the youngest students (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). The teachers had bestowed more attention on the ‘intellectual bloomers.’

Though with subtlety, the teachers had treated these students differently, providing in-depth feedback etc. Rosenthal concluded that even inconspicuous factors such as attitude and mood could impact students.

It bears noting however, that this experiment was not without drawbacks. The efficacy and reliability of IQ testing have been challenged even by those supporting its administration for limited purposes. Moreover, some people can be more susceptible to labeling effects than others.

Highly individualistic persons, for instance, may not really care much about what others think or expect of them. Finally, the experiment’s attempt to artificially control the student environment could have compromised the outcomes and the conclusions derived therefrom.

How the Pygmalion Effect works

The operation of the Pygmalion effect, similar to that of a self-fulfilling prophecy, can be understood as progressing through 4 stages in a cyclical pattern:

• Others’ beliefs about us shape their conduct toward us.
• Their conduct toward us influences our beliefs about ourselves.
• These beliefs in turn, impact our actions toward others.
• Our actions toward others influence their beliefs about us, thereby returning us to the initial stage.

A central tenet of the Pygmalion effect is that others’ expectations of us can eventually influence our behavior in a significant way.

In other words, low expectations could ultimately lead to poor performance while optimistic expectations would likely improve performance.

Everyday life abounds with readily observable instances of the Pygmalion effect. The manager of an insurance agency, for example, might decide to categorize various sales agents based upon their past performance.

She might label them as excellent, average, and below-average individuals, and give each group different targets to accomplish.

The excellent group, by virtue of their label, would receive not just a boost to their confidence but also a greater challenge to meet. This, in turn, would significantly influence their conduct.

They would strive to improve their productivity and device innovative methods to accomplish this goal. Succeeding eventually would reinforce the label of excellence attached to them.

Thus, the optimistic expectations projected upon them would likely engender a virtuous cycle conducive to high performance.

Conversely, those for whom lower goals are set, do not have the same incentives to perform like their counterparts from whom much is expected. Consequently, unsurprisingly, many of these average and below-average sales agents would likely produce, at best, mediocre results.

How to use the Pygmalion Effect

The expectations of those occupying positions of authority in various fields, from the business world to the battlefield, can readily impact the performance of their subordinates.

As such, finding means to leverage this reality to optimize the work done by those whom one can influence could be immensely beneficial. Following are some ways to use this effect:

1. Cultivate awareness

Before altering one’s actions, knowing how they can impact others is essential. As such, becoming aware of how one’s spoken words and body language convey potent messages to one’s subordinates is a prerequisite.

Moreover, knowing the range of receptivity among, and the diversity of interpretations the same message may elicit from, various individuals within a group can significantly aid a leader.

2. Identify strengths and weaknesses

Praising meritorious conduct often constitutes a powerful impetus for the continuation of laudable behavior. This is especially true for persons with a propensity to please their superiors.

Moreover, identifying weaknesses, and proposing plans for salutary amendment in a fashion that conveys confidence is no less important.

When improvement is required, both providing critical feedback, and affirming the person’s capacity to improve can play a vital role in engendering positive change.

3. Setting challenges

Creating high yet realistic goals can convey the expectation that such objectives could be met by the pertinent individuals.

The training of Olympic athletes and special forces soldiers amply demonstrates how difficult goals can encourage not just an improvement but peak performance by translating high expectations into crucial behavioral changes.

Further Information

• Labelling Theory (Education)
• The Golem Effect
• Pygmalion and intelligence? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4 (6), 169-171.

Mitchell, T. R., & Daniels, D. (2003). Observations and commentary on recent research in work motivation.  Motivation and work behavior ,  7 (1), 225-54.

Raudenbush, S. W. (1984). Magnitude of teacher expectancy effects on pupil IQ as a function of the credibility of expectancy induction: A synthesis of findings from 18 experiments. Journal of Educational psychology, 76 (1), 85.

Rosenthal, R., & Babad, E. Y. (1985). Pygmalion in the gymnasium.  Educational leadership ,  43 (1), 36-39.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . The Urban Review, 3 (1), 16-20.

Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1978). Interpersonal expectancy effects: The first 345 studies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1 (3), 377-386.

Shaw, George Bernard (1912). “Pygmalion.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3825/3825-h/3825-h.htm.

Blue Eyes Brown Eyes – Jane Elliott

“Keep me from judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.” This is a Sioux saying. You’ve probably heard different versions of it. This is the phrase that inspired one of the most well-known “experiments” in education. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise is now known as the inspiration for diversity training in the workplace, making Jane Elliott one of the most influential educators in recent American history.

What Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment?

In 1968, schoolteacher Jane Elliott decided to divide her classroom into students with blue eyes and students with brown eyes. The experiment, known as Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment, is regarded as an eye-opening way for children to learn about racism and discrimination.

What Was the Purpose of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment?

The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Elliott had a talk with her students about diversity and racism. She asked her students, who were all white, whether or not they knew what it felt like to be judged by the color of their skin. Even though some of the children said yes, Elliott pushed back. She asked them if they would like to experience what it felt like to be in a person of color’s shoes. The children said yes, and the exercise began.

Why Did Jane Elliott Choose Eye Color To Divide Her Students?

The first thing that Jane Elliott did was divide the children into groups: those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes. This was intentional. “One of the ways Hitler decided who went into the gas chamber was eye color,” Elliott said in a later speech. “If you had a good German name, but you had brown eyes, they threw you into the gas chamber because they thought you might be a Jewish person who was trying to pass. They killed hundreds of thousands of people based on eye color alone, that’s the reason I used eye color for my determining factor that day.”

How Did The Experiment Work?

Elliott divided the class into children with blue eyes and children with brown eyes. On the first day, she told the children with blue eyes they were “superior": smarter and more well-behaved than the children with brown eyes. Children with brown eyes were forced to wear armbands that made it easy for people to see that they had brown eyes. (In later versions of the exercise, children in the “inferior” group were given collars to wear.)

Throughout the day, Elliott continued to give the children with blue eyes special treatment. Blue-eyed children got five extra minutes of recess. If brown-eyed children made a mistake, Elliott would call out the mistake and attribute it to the student’s brown eyes.

The next day, Elliott reversed the roles. The brown-eyed children could take off their armbands and give them to the blue-eyed children, who were now taught that they were “inferior” to the brown-eyed children. And the exercise continued in a similar fashion to how it was executed the day before.

Results of the Experiment

It didn’t take long for the children to turn on each other. Kids “on top” would tease the children who were deemed as the inferior group. The kids in the “bottom” group became timider and kept to themselves. Things even got violent at recess. Within a few hours of starting the exercise, Elliott noticed big differences in the children’s behavior and how they treated each other. She noticed that student relationships had changed; even if students were friendly outside of the exercise, they treated each other with arrogance or bossiness once the “roles” were assigned.

When Elliott conducted the exercise the next year, she added something extra to collect data. She gave all of the students simple spelling and math tests two weeks before the exercise, on the days of the exercise, and after the exercise.

Elliot said that when the children were given the test on the same day that they were in the “superior” group, they tended to get the highest scores. Students in the “inferior” groups were more likely to get a worse score. If you have ever heard of the self-fulfilling prophecy , these results may not come as a surprise.

Initial Reaction to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Exercise

Why are we still talking about this experiment over 50 years later?

The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise received national attention shortly after it ended. Elliott asked her students to write about their experiences for the local newspaper. The story was then picked up by the Associated Press. Elliott was even brought on The Tonight Show to talk about her experiences.

Not everyone appreciated Elliott’s exercise. In fact, most of the initial response was negative. Elliott’s coworkers avoided her after her appearance on The Tonight Show. They gossiped about her in the hallway. One even wrote a lipstick message with racial slurs.

Was The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment Ethical?

Many critics that the children were too young to understand the exercise. One caller complained that white children would not be able to handle the exercise and would be seriously damaged by the exercise.

Researchers later concluded that there was evidence that the students became less prejudiced after the study and that it was inconclusive as to whether or not the potential harm outweighed the benefits of the exercise.

These initial criticisms didn’t stop Elliott. She continued to conduct the exercise with her third graders. In 1970, a documentary about the exercise was released. Watch it online right now ! The documentary has become a popular teaching tool among teachers, business owners, and even employees at correctional facilities.

That same year, Elliott was invited to the White House Conference on Children and Youth to conduct an exercise on adult educators.

Lasting Impact of Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment

Fourteen years later, the students featured in The Eye of the Storm reunited and discussed their experiences with Elliott. Many of them noted that when they hear prejudice and discrimination from others, they “wish they could whip out those collars” and give them the experience they had as third graders. This meeting, along with other clips of the exercise’s impact on education, is featured in a PBS documentary called A Class Divided. 

Even though the response to the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise was initially negative, it made Jane Elliott a leading figure in diversity training. She left teaching in the mid-80s to speak publicly about the experience and the impact of prejudice and racism.

Anti-Racism Training in the 21st Century

In 2001, Jane Elliott recorded  The Angry Eye,  in which she revised and updated her experiment. This time, the participants weren't a bunch of elementary school children - they were young adults. From the moment the experiment begins, Jane Elliott uses a mean tone to speak to the participants. She says it's because racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and ethnocentrism are mean and nasty.

The blue-eyed participants faced discrimination for two and a half hours. In explaining the experiment rules to the brown-eyed contestants, she addresses the people of color in the room. She asks them if they have ever faced treatment like the type that blue-eyed people would experience in the following two and a half hours. One student answers, "since the day I was born." Throughout the entire experiment, Elliott leads frank conversations about race and discrimination. Sadly, these conversations are still relevant today. They were also relevant in the 1950s when Elliott first began this work.

In the documentary, she said that she conducted the original blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment to make a positive change. In 2001, she was still trying to make a change. You can contribute to that positive change by watching the documentary . It is quite powerful to watch. At points, you are likely to feel uncomfortable. In the most uncomfortable moments, Elliott reminds the students of violent acts caused by racism or homophobia.

Jane Elliot Quotes 

Jane Elliot’s work and experiences have made her an authority on education and anti-racism. The following are some of her most insightful quotes on these issues. 

On the Power of Words

“ Words are the most powerful weapon devised by humankind. We use them to divide and destroy people.”

On White Privilege

“ White people’s number one freedom , in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. We don’t have to learn about those who are other than white. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that we’re ignorant.”

On Understanding The Different Ways We Treat Other Races

“ I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens, if you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand. You didn’t understand the directions. If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society, stand. Nobody’s standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening, you know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you’re so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.” 

On Conversations With Other Teachers

" The first reaction I get from teachers , who see this film or from hearing, - hear me discuss what I do say to me "How can you do that to these little children? How can put those little children through that exercise for a day?" And they seem unable to relate the sympathy that they're feeling for these little white children for a day to what happens to children of color in this society for a lifetime or to the fact that they are doing this to children based on skin color every day. And I'm only doing this as an exercise that every child knows is an exercise and every child knows is going to end at the end of the day."

On The Origins of Racism

“We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Racism is not genetical. It has everything to do with power."

Where Is Jane Elliott Now?

To this day, at the age of 86, Jane Elliott continues this work. She has made statements about the increase in hate crimes and racism in recent years. The Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be relevant. The idea of white privilege is closely tied to Elliott’s initial question to her students. Did they know what it was like to be discriminated against?

While controversial, the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise continues to be one of the most well-known and praised learning exercises in the world of ​ educational psychology . The students initially involved wished that everyone could participate in an exercise like this. How do you think the world would change if everyone experienced the perils and setbacks that come with prejudice and discrimination?

Related posts:

• Outgroup Bias (Definition + Examples)
• Discrimination Stimulus
• Superior and Inferior Colliculi
• Stanley Milgram (Psychologist Biography)
• Philip Zimbardo (Biography + Experiments)

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Teacher Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy

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Last Updated on June 30, 2024 by Karl Thompson

The labels which teachers give to pupils can influence the construction and development of students’ identities, or self-concepts: how they see and define themselves and how they interact with others. This in turn can affect their attitudes towards school, their behaviour, and ultimately their level of achievement in education.

Labelling refers to the process of defining a person or group in a simplified way – narrowing down the complexity of the whole person and fitting them into broad categories. At the simplest level labelling involves that first judgement you make about someone, often based on first-impressions. Is someone ‘worth making the effort to get to know more’, are you ‘indifferent to them’, or are they ‘to be avoided’…?

A closely related concept to labelling theory is the self-fulfilling prophecy – where an individual accepts their label and the label becomes true in practice – for example, a student labelled as deviant actually becomes deviant as a response to being so-labelled.

Classic studies on teacher labelling in education 

David hargreaves: speculation, elaboration, stabilization.

David Hargreaves et al (1975) in their classic book ‘Deviance in Classrooms’ analysed the ways in which students came to be typed, or labelled. Their study was based on interviews with secondary teachers and classroom observation in two secondary schools, focusing on how teachers ‘got to know their students’ entering the first year of the school.

When the third stage, stabilisation, is reached, the teacher feels that ‘he knows’ the students and finds little difficulty in making sense of their actions, which will be interpreted in light of the general type of student the teacher thinks they are. Some students will be regarded as deviant and it will be difficult for any of their future actions to be regarded in a positive light.

Labelling and social class

Student social class and teachers’ expectations.

Rist found that new students coming into the Kindergarten were grouped onto three tables – one for the ‘more able’, and the other two for the ‘less able’, and that students had been split into their respective tables by day eight of their early-school career. He also found that teachers made their judgments not necessarily on any evidence of ability, but on appearance (whether they were neat and tidy) and whether they were known to have come from an educated, middle class family (or not).

They found that the social class backgrounds of students had an influence. Those from middle class backgrounds were more likely to be placed onto higher level courses even when they had the same grades as students from lower class backgrounds.

In general those with middle class manners were more likely to be labelled good prospects for college while those with working class manners and style were more likely to be labelled as conduct problems.

Labelling theory and the self fulfilling prophecy 

They tested all students at the beginning of the experiment for IQ, and again after one year, and found that the RANDOMLY SELECTED ‘spurter’ group had, on average, gained more IQ than the other 80%, who the teachers believed to be ‘average’. They also found that the report cards for the 20% group showed that the teachers believed this group had made greater advances in reading.

Gender, ethnicity and labelling

One classic study of gender and labelling was John Abraham’s research in which he found that teachers had ideas of ‘typical boys’ and typical girls’, expecting girls to be more focused on schoolwork and better behaved than boys in general. Teachers also had higher expectations of girls than boys.

David Gilborn (1990), for example, has argued that teachers have the lowest expectations of Black boys and even see them as a threat, while Connolly (1998) found that teachers label Asian boys’s disruptive behaviour as immature rather than deliberately disruptive, so they weren’t punished as severely as Black Boys. Meanwhile Asian girls were largely ignored because they were seen as passive and not willing to engage in class discussion.

Contemporary research on labelling theory 

Once these labels are applied and become the dominant categories for pupils, they can become what Waterhouse called a ‘pivotal identity’ for students – a core identity providing a pivot which teachers use to interpret and reinterpret classroom events and student behaviour.

Criticisms of the labelling theory of education

Given the above findings it should be no surprise that the Rosenthal and Jacobson research has been proved unreliable. Other similar experimental studies reveal no significant effects.

Signposting

This post has been written primarily for A-level sociology students, although it will hopefully be a useful primer for anyone with a general interest in this subject.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Psychology (Incl. Examples +PDF)

You may not believe yourself to be a fortuneteller, but you’ve likely found that you can sometimes be surprisingly accurate in your predictions.

For instance, you might predict that a project you are working on will turn out exceedingly well, and feel confident in your ability to foresee the future when your hard work pays off and your project is received positively.

Alternatively, you might expect that a speech you have to give at a work event will go terribly, and thus you feel no surprise when you stutter, mumble, and frequently forget your next point while speaking.

Although you could take these instances as evidence that you know yourself and your abilities quite well (and this can be true), you might not think about the effects your expectations have on your behavior.

When our beliefs and expectations influence our behavior at the subconscious level, we are enacting what is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In this article, we’ll explore what self-fulfilling prophecies are, how they play a role in psychology and sociology, and how they can worsen mental health disorders like depression.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values and self-compassion and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy, self-fulfilling prophecy in psychology, self-fulfilling prophecy in sociology: a look at the theory of robert merton, rosenthal and the pygmalion effect, the cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies, self-fulfilling prophecy and depression, examples of self-fulfilling prophecies, how does it shape communication.

• 6 Self-fulfilling Prophecy Quotes

Book Recommendations + PDFs

A take-home message.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief or expectation that an individual holds about a future event that manifests because the individual holds it (Good Therapy, 2015).

For example, if you wake up and immediately think—perhaps for no particular reason at all—that today is going to be a terrible day, your attitude might make your prediction come true. You may unconsciously work to affirm your belief by ignoring the positive, amplifying the negative, and behaving in ways that are unlikely to contribute to an enjoyable day.

This concept appears regularly in culture and art, and plenty of examples of it can be found in literary works.

One of the classic examples of a self-fulfilling prophecy comes from the Greek story of Oedipus. In the story, Oedipus’s father Laius is warned that his son will eventually kill him. To avoid meeting this fate, he abandons his son and leaves him to die.

Oedipus was found and raised by foster parents, under the assumption that they were his real parents. One day, he is also confronted with a dire warning—that he will kill his father and marry his widowed mother. Of course, Oedipus has no wish to kill the man he believes is his father or marry the woman he believes is his mother, so he abandons his home and foster parents and heads off to the city.

In the city, he meets a stranger and ends up in a fight with him. Once Oedipus kills the strange man, he marries his widow. He later learns that the man he killed was his actual father and that his new bride is actually his mother. By trying to avoid fate, both Laius and Oedipus manifested the prophecies.

This compelling tale helped the self-fulfilling prophecy become a popular trope in literature and film, but it’s also a much-researched concept in psychology.

Psychologists have found strong evidence for the impact of our beliefs and expectations on outcomes, particularly when we are convinced that our predictions will manifest, even when we aren’t aware that we hold the expectation.

A commonly understood example of a self-fulfilling prophecy in psychology is what is known as the placebo effect (Isaksen, 2012). The placebo effect refers to the improvements in outcomes measured in subjects of scientific studies or clinical trials, even when the participants did not receive any meaningful treatment. The participants’ belief effects the “treatment” that they experience.

This effect was discovered during clinical trials and can be so strong that new measures were put in place to account for its impact on an experiment’s findings. Research on the placebo effect has proven that belief can be a very powerful thing.

Merton was born in 1910 to poor Eastern European immigrants and was raised in Philadelphia, where he became fascinated with sociology after attending a class at Temple College.

After graduating, he moved on to Harvard University and began studying under some of the leading sociologists of the time.

By his second year at Harvard, Merton was already publishing with some of these leading sociologists, and he eventually became one of the most influential social scientists himself (Calhoun, 2003).

Perhaps it was his upbringing in one of the slums of South Philadelphia that informed his theory of the self-fulfilling prophecy; after all, his is one of the classic “American dream” trajectories that is usually accompanied by a strong conviction in one’s talents and abilities.

Merton coined the term “self-fulfilling prophecy,” defining it as:

“A false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true.”

Merton, 1968, p. 477

In other words, Merton noticed that sometimes a belief brings about consequences that cause reality to match the belief. Generally, those at the center of a self-fulfilling prophecy don’t understand that their beliefs caused the consequences they expected or feared—it’s often unintentional, unlike self-motivation or self-confidence .

These prophecies can involve intrapersonal processes (i.e., an individual’s belief affects his or her own behavior) and/or interpersonal processes (i.e., an individual’s belief affects another’s behavior).

The placebo effect is one example of an intrapersonal self-fulfilling prophecy: expectations for a spouse to cheat contribute to that spouse actually cheating (Biggs, 2009).

Although self-fulfilling prophecies can manifest in a variety of ways, Merton was most interested in understanding how the phenomenon plays out in racial prejudice and discrimination. He noticed that people with racial prejudices were likely to treat people of other races in a way that led to a confirmation of their prejudices.

For example, those who considered people of color to be intellectually inferior avoided talking to them, giving no chance to prove the racist individual wrong.

Unsurprisingly, when a whole group of people is treated as if they are intellectually inferior, they are not given the same opportunities afforded to others that allow them to build their knowledge and improve their abilities.

When such groups of people know they are viewed as “other” or “lesser than,” then the average performance of the discriminated group is lower. It is an unfortunate cycle.

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These studies hinted at the idea that not only do our expectations for ourselves influence outcomes, our expectations of others also have an impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior toward them.

A classic experiment by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobsen in the 1960s provided evidence for this idea. Findings from this experiment (and other subsequent explorations) showed that teacher expectations of students influenced student performance more than any differences in talent or intelligence.

The researchers conducted their experiment at a public elementary school, where they chose a group of children at random and told teachers that these students had taken the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition and were identified as “growth-spurters.” They explained that these children had great potential and would likely experience a great deal of intellectual growth within the next year.

They gathered performance data on all of the students and compared the “ordinary” students’ gains with the gains of the “growth-spurters.” The researchers found that the students whom the teachers expected to do well (the randomly chosen “growth-spurters”) actually did show greater improvement than their peers.

Since the children were not told of their false Test of Inflected Acquisition results, the only explanation for these outcomes is that the teachers’ expectations influenced student performance.

This effect, known as the Pygmalion Effect, is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy involving interpersonal processes. As Rosenthal put it:

“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”

Rosenthal & Babad, 1985

Self-fulfilling prophecy (Definition + Examples) – Practical Psychology

It’s not hard to see that self-fulfilling prophecies can lead to cycles of thought and behavior—both good and bad.

When we believe something about ourselves, we are more likely to act in ways that correspond to our beliefs, thus reinforcing our beliefs and encouraging the same behavior.

Similarly, when we believe something about others, we may act in ways that encourage them to confirm our assumptions, thus reinforcing our beliefs about them.

We don’t think much about these cycles when the outcomes are positive, but we have a common term for these cycles when the outcomes are negative: vicious cycles.

A person who is constantly doubting his ability to perform at his job may inadvertently sabotage himself. Since he is sure his work is subpar, he may avoid putting much time and effort into it or avoid doing it altogether.

This results in a lack of practice and experience, which only serves to make his work even less competent, leading to even more self-doubt and even lower self-esteem .

The image to the right provides a visual of the cycle when interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecies are in play:

• First, we harbor a belief or set of beliefs about ourselves;
• These beliefs influence our actions towards others;
• Our actions toward others, shaped by our beliefs about them, impact their beliefs about us;
• Their beliefs cause them to act in ways consistent with those beliefs towards us, which reinforces our initial beliefs about ourselves.

This cycle can apply in many scenarios and situations, but it’s particularly easy to identify each step in situations like Rosenthal’s famous studies of the Pygmalion effect (although with an alteration to the first step):

• Teachers may have preconceived notions about some of their students—they believe some are inherently talented and promising students, while they see others as troublemakers or intellectually inferior;
• A teacher may inadvertently treat the “promising” students in ways consistent with their beliefs (e.g., offering them more help, encouraging them to do well) and treat the “troublesome” students in ways similarly consistent with their beliefs (e.g., deciding not to invest much effort into teaching them, allowing them to skate by with mediocre work);
• The students may come to see themselves in the same way their teacher does—the promising students feel confident and motivated, while the troublesome students feel unintelligent and inferior;
• The students might then act in ways that match their beliefs about themselves, reinforcing the teacher’s initial assumptions about them.

The cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies can be positive for the “promising” students, but the cycle can damage those who are assumed to be incompetent or lacking by themselves and/or by others.

A person suffering from depression may hold some very negative thoughts about herself, thoughts like:

• “I’m worthless”;
• “I can’t function properly”;
• “I’m unlovable”;
• “No one likes me, they all think I’m a downer”;
• “Since no one likes me, I have no friends.”

Thoughts like “I’m worthless,” and “I can’t function properly” may persuade her to give up on self-development and to no longer add to her knowledge, improve her skills, or enhance her emotional resilience . “After all,” she thinks, “what does it matter? It won’t work anyway.”

If her thoughts continue this way for a prolonged period of time, she might find that she truly can’t function normally anymore. She may become too depressed to do even the most basic of functions, like speaking to others, making food, or showering.

Thoughts like “I’m unlovable,” “No one likes me, they all think I’m a downer,” and “Since no one likes me, I have no friends,” can easily transfer into reality. She may avoid interacting with others at all since she is sure they will not enjoy her company, leaving her with no friends.

She might interact with others but behave in a negative and unfriendly way since she is sure they will be unfriendly or unwelcoming to her, causing those she interacts with to form opinions consistent with her negative thoughts.

Depression is particularly insidious because of cycles such as these. Dr. Allan Schwartz gave this description of the vicious cycles of depression:

“All of us have to clear ourselves of this ‘poor me’ way of thinking. It is not helpful and not realistic. Negative thinking is contagious because it leads to negative talk and the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you convince yourself that your life is awful then you go about making your life awful”

Schwartz, 2010 para. 7

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In addition to the examples listed above, the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies can be seen in plenty of other areas of life.

Examples in two such areas are listed below.

Examples in the Workplace

Perhaps the most salient example of self-fulfilling prophecies in the workplace can be seen in one of the first workplace interactions—the job interview. Imagine two people with the same qualifications: the same education, the same experience, the same skills. One is supremely confident in her ability to ace the interview, while the other is feeling insecure about his interview skills and predicts he will not get the job offer.

The confident individual might enter into the interview with a smile and answer every question with grace, while the more insecure individual might stumble through their answers and doubt their qualification for the job.

Who do you think is more likely to get the job? Clearly, the interviewee who believes in themselves and acts on that belief is more likely to get a job offer than the interviewee who expects to fail.

This prophecy can play out even after someone gets hired. If an employee is assigned a new task that she feels is outside of her wheelhouse, she might think to herself, “There’s no way I can do this. I’m going to fail.” The employee might then unconsciously put less effort into the project, thinking it’s a lost cause. She might avoid asking others for help since she believes the project is doomed anyway.

When the project indeed fails, she might think to herself, “I was right, I just couldn’t do this task,” without realizing that her behavior all but guaranteed that the project would fail.

The workplace can also act as host to interpersonal processes that result in self-fulfilling prophecies. Imagine that the employee in the last example has a different attitude about her ability to complete the project. She may feel nervous about taking on a new task that will require her to learn and practice new skills, but she knows she’s capable.

However, her manager is less certain. He decides not to invest too much time and effort into the project since he doesn’t think it will turn out well. He neglects to connect his employee with the people she needs to talk to and refuses to enroll her in the training that will help her develop those required skills since he feels it will be a waste of her time and company money.

Because she does not receive the resources she needs to complete the project successfully, it is indeed doomed to fail—but it is the manager who doomed it, not the employee herself.

Examples in Relationships

If a woman starts dating someone under the assumption that they are not really “relationship” or “marriage material,” she will likely not take the relationship seriously and refrain from investing much time or effort into it.

This lack of investment may cause her partner to have doubts, and feel that she is distant and unavailable, thus why should they stick around and invest in hard conversations?

When her partner leaves, she might think that she was ultimately proven right—the partner wasn’t relationship material. However, her assumption likely influenced her behavior to not expect much and that initial seed caused the relationship to flounder.

On a more positive note, a self-fulfilling prophecy can also lead to good outcomes in relationships. If a man begins dating a man whom he feels strongly connected to, he may feel that this person is “the one.” Since he expects the relationship to last, he treats his partner with love and respect; then he might invest more time and energy into making it fulfilling and partners.

This love and attention ensure that his partner is satisfied with the relationship as well, and causes his partner to invest a similar level of time and energy into the relationship.

Because his prediction that the relationship will be a long and happy one leads him to behave in a way that supports that prediction, the outcome he predicted is manifested.

When we hold internal beliefs or expectations or make predictions about someone, we often behave toward them in a manner consistent with those beliefs and expectations.

For example, if we are told that someone we are about to meet is a wonderful and interesting person with a sparkling personality, we will likely make sure we talk with them, be friendlier than usual, and ask lots of questions. When they sense our interest in them, they will likely return that interest and give full, engaging answers to our questions. Thus, their behavior follows our actions.

Whether we are consciously aware of it, our beliefs and expectations of someone will seep into our communications with them.

This phenomenon can be seen in how stereotypes are formed and reinforced. An individual may be told about how people of a certain race behave, and then form a global assumption about all people of that race.

The next time they see someone of the same race, they will likely treat them as a person who behaves according to their assumption. It can be dangerous, in this way, as a social issue in need of mitigation.

From research on the Pygmalion effect, we know that when individuals are treated as if they are hardworking and capable people, they are more inclined to work hard and believe in their own capability.

Conversely, when people are treated as unfriendly or intellectually inferior, they are more likely to act in an unfriendly manner or to doubt their intelligence and keep their deeper thoughts to themselves (Aaronson, 2005).

6 Quotes About Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Sometimes all we need to remind ourselves of a simple but elusive truth, often summarized by a good quote. Read the quotes below to help you remember the importance of your own beliefs and expectations about your abilities.

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which more than anything will affect a successful outcome.”

William James

“Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Brian Tracy

“If you expect the battle to be insurmountable, you’ve met the enemy. It’s you.”

Khang Kijarro Nguyen

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

W.I. Thomas

“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation, evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error.”

Robert K. Merton

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If this piece sparked your interest in learning more about self-fulfilling prophecies and the Pygmalion Effect, give these books a try:

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A Practical Guide to Its Use in Education by Robert T. Tauber ( Amazon );
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Social, Psychological, and Physiological Effects of Expectancies by Russell A. Jones ( Amazon );
• Your Life is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Teens by M. E. Forbes ( Amazon );
• Social Perception and Social Reality: Why Accuracy Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy  by Lee Jussim ( Amazon );
• How the Economy Works : Confidence, Crashes, and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies by Roger E. A. Farmer ( Amazon );
• Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson ( Amazon ).

For a quicker overview of this phenomenon than can be found in a book, check out these journal articles on self-fulfilling prophecies:

• “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” by Robert Merton ( article );
• “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Close Relationships” by Geraldine Downey, Antonio L. Freitas, Benjamin Michaelis, and Hala Khouri ( article );
• “Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy by Lee Jussim ( article );
• “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A Literature Review” by Nidhi Sharma and Keshav Sharma ( article )

The self-fulfilling prophecy is certainly one of those concepts that is meaningful in an academic context and in a personal context.

Now that you know about how our beliefs and assumptions can impact our own behavior and the behavior of those around us, be sure to keep this phenomenon in mind—especially in your communication with others and in your own self-talk.

Negative thoughts can become reality, but the good news of the self-fulfilling prophecy is that positive thoughts can become reality as well.

What are your thoughts on self-fulfilling prophecies? Do you have any examples of self-fulfilling prophecies that have played out for you? Let us know in the comments below. We would love to explore this topic more with you.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

• Aaronson, L. (2005). Self-fulfilling prophecies: Expectations of stereotypes will come to pass if people believe in them. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200503/self-fulfilling-prophecies
• Biggs, M. (2009). Self-fulfilling prophecies. In P. Bearman & P. Hedstrӧm (Eds.) The Oxford handbook of analytical sociology (pp. 294-314). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199215362.013.13
• Calhoun, C. (2003). Robert K. Merton remembered. American Sociological Association. Retrieved from http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/footnotes/mar03/indextwo.html
• Good Therapy. (2015). Self-fulfilling prophecy. Good Therapy PsychPedia. Retrieved from https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/self-fulfilling-prophecy
• Isaksen. J. V. (2012). The self-fulfilling prophecy. Popular Social Science. Retrieved from http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2012/12/27/the-self-fulfilling-prophecy/
• Merton, R. K. (1948). The self-fulfilling prophecy. The Antioch Review, 8, 504-521. https://doi.org/10.2307/4609267
• Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review, 3, 16-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02322211
• Rosenthal, R., and E. Y. Babad. (1985). Pygmalion in the gymnasium. Educational Leadership, 43, 36–39.
• Schwartz, A. (2010). Woe is me, the self fulfilling prophecy. MentalHelp.net – Disorders & Issues. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/woe-is-me-the-self-fulfilling-prophecy/
• Tartakovsky, M. (2015). How to step pessimistic self-fulfilling prophecies from shaping your life. Psych Central. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to-stop-pessimistic-self-fulfilling-prophecies-from-shaping-your-life/

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Hello. Since I was 5 years old I have always been a deep thinker. All my life I see now after reading this article I have allowed my depression to get out of control and ruin my relationships, cause me to have substance abuse issues and almost take my own life on several occasions. I am going through a depression now but know there is a better solution to all this. I stumbled across this tonight i call this divine intervention. I see where my negative thinking and beliefs about myself and the way I view myself and others have caused me to cause negative consequences in my whole life. I definitely after reading this see and understand Self fulfilling Prophecy. I can now change !!

Thank you for the article. I have gained more insight on the concept self-fulfilling. It makes me understand human belief on a particular action prompts a response which you believe the outcome would be.

I used the expression self-fulfilling prophecy during the course of a heated debate with my consultant. It caused a hiatus that I had not expected. This article confirmed that I had in fact use the expression correctly. Thank you for a comprehensive insight into the concept.

I forgot to say thank you for the article. I quite enjoyed the refresher in self fulfilling prophecy.

I wanted to know about self fulfilling prophecy because I am a very “senior” senior (86) with a smart watch. My watch has been telling me, based on my walking speed, length of step, symmetry and the amount of time that I have both feet on the ground, that my risk of falling in the next 12 months is high. I don’t want that to become a self fulfilling prophecy as I know that falls in seniors often forecasts dire results. I must work hard against this as I have caught myself thinking that I don’t need to do something because I probably won’t be here next season. (Cover the patio furniture against snow and ice so it will be in good shape next summer,as an example)

I really enjoyed this article, thank you. This and other articles are quickly making me realize the amount of negative situations I have personally manifested in my life due to a negative mindset.

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What is a self-fulfilling prophecy (a definition).

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Psychology and Sociology

Video: the pygmalion effect.

Stereotype Threat as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Positive versus negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

Examples of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

• Bank run: This example is one of Merton’s original ideas (Merton and Merton, 1968). It involves clients of a bank believing that the bank is about to cease function. Therefore, the clients rush to the bank, withdrawing all their money. If many clients empty their accounts, the bank may run out of funds, become destabilized, and cease its functions. 
• Strikebreakers: This example is also one of Merton’s observations. In short, in the early 20 th century, many believed that African American workers were strikebreakers, which caused the labor unions to shun them. This caused African American workers to struggle to find and keep stable jobs. Therefore, many had to fill positions during strikes, fulfilling the prophecy that they were strikebreakers (Merton, 1948).
• Dangerous slums : This type of labeling starts when part of the population believes that one of their city’s neighborhoods is becoming a slum. This belief causes worried families who can afford to move away to leave that neighborhood for places that are perceived as safer, leaving the poor, less-educated, or unemployed residents behind. The housing prices may drop, allowing more poor people to move into vacated homes. Moreover, policing may increase in the so-called slum, leading to more arrests, further expanding the notion that the neighborhood is crime-ridden and unsafe.
• Bad wedding: A bride and groom, Jill and Jim, worry that something may ruin their wedding and their guests won’t be able to enjoy themselves. By trying to micromanage every little detail and making unreasonable requests, they anger their closest friends and family members, causing some of them to attend the wedding in a foul mood and others to be too upset to enjoy it. 

Video: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Examples of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Relationships

• Disinterested partner : Ashley has been dating Arun for nearly a year. Although she and Arun enjoy each other’s company and love one another dearly, Ashley suspects that Arun will start losing interest in her within the next few months. Ashley buys expensive clothes and lingerie and gets a stylish haircut before their weeklong vacation to ensure Arun's continued interest. When Arun picks Ashley up, he doesn’t notice her new clothes or haircut right away. To make matters worse, he gets tired after driving for hours and falls asleep as soon as he steps into the hotel room before seeing Ashley’s new lingerie. Ashley gets upset and acts infuriated the entire week. Whenever Arun asks what happened, she blames him for not loving her anymore. Neither Arun nor Ashley enjoys the vacation. After their return, Arun starts acting cautiously to avoid upsetting Ashley, which she interprets as a sign of his slipping interest. A few weeks later, they break up. 
• The lousy seed: Yvonne has two children: Boris and Estelle. Yvonne thinks she has always loved her children equally. Yet, she’s given most of her attention to Boris ever since he was born, claiming there’s something special about him. Boris continues to live near Yvonne and visits her every day. Estelle has left for college and sees Yvonne every few years. Yvonne is upset that Estelle turned out to be so uncaring and callous but feels happy to have predicted Boris would be such a great son.
• Cheating spouse: Denise has never liked working out. Yet, a few months ago, she discovered a new cycling class that she enjoys. Her husband Julian is puzzled by Denise’s sudden desire to go to the gym or get in shape and thinks there must be another reason. So, he suspects Denise is interested in another man. When Julian confronts Denise, she is surprised that he doesn’t trust her. Denise stops going to the gym, but Julian continues to think Denise must be having an affair and brings up his suspicions at every opportunity, and often calls her a cheater. A few weeks later, Denise travels for a conference. There she meets a charming executive who buys her a drink. When Denise invites him to her hotel room, she thinks, “why not? Julian thinks I'm cheating on him anyway.”
• Wicked stepparent: Thirteen-year-old Lydia is upset that her father is marrying Shima. Lydia thinks Shima won’t be a loving stepmother and will ruin her relationship with her father. Every time Shima is around, Lydia starts acting up. Lydia’s behavior becomes more erratic after the wedding. Eventually, Shima talks to her husband about how her stepdaughter’s behavior upsets her. He talks to Lydia and tells her to apologize to Shima. Lydia refuses, which causes her father to get angry. Lydia feels her father’s reaction has one explanation: her wicked stepmother succeeded in ruining Lydia’s relationship with her father. ​

Examples of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in School

• Boys are better at math: Chantelle and Jamal are twins learning algebra at school. At first, Chantelle understands the concepts quickly. Jamal struggles with some ideas and turns in the assignments he copies from Chantelle. Their math teacher Mr. Knowles praises the precision and details in Jamal’s homework assignments and doesn’t acknowledge anything about Chantelle’s. Moreover, he rarely picks Chantelle when she raises her hand to answer a question. Jamal feels encouraged to do better and pays more attention in class, whereas Chantelle starts to daydream during math. At the end of the school year, Chantelle starts turning in the assignments she copies from Jamal.
• Stereotype threat: Khalid is a fifth-grader whose family has recently moved to the U.S. from Syria. Khalid’s parents don’t speak English well and work as line cooks. Khalid’s classmate, Ling, is also a recent immigrant who moved from China after Ling’s father accepted a faculty position at a nearby university. Their teacher, Ms. White, believes Khalid won’t perform as well as her other students, whereas she expects Ling to excel in every subject. So, she gives more attention to Ling and barely acknowledges Khalid’s presence. At the end of the school year, Ling performs better than all other students, whereas Khalid struggles with most subjects, both students fulfilling the prophecy about their educational fates. ​

How to Avoid the Negative Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Articles related to the self-fulfilling prophecy​.

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• ​Daily Affirmations: 102 Powerful Affirmations to Improve Your Life
• Manifestation Methods: Easy, Quick, & Effective Methods
• Goal Setting: How to Set and Achieve Your Goals ​
• Anchoring: Definition in Psychology & Examples

Books Related to the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy​

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A Practical Guide to Its Use in Education ​
• How the Economy Works: Confidence, Crashes and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Believe in Yourself: An inmate journal for women: Notebook with inspiring, positive and motivational quotes

Final Thoughts on Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

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• Crum, A., & Phillips, D. J. (2015). Self-fulfilling prophesies, placebo effects, and the social-psychological creation of reality . Emerging trends in the social and behavioral sciences, 1-14.
• Johnson, J. A. (2014). Placebo/Nocebo/Tomato Effect… It’s All About Attitude, Perception, and Expectation . Journal for nurses in professional development, 30(5), 264-265.
• Kamenica, E., Naclerio, R., & Malani, A. (2013). Advertisements impact the physiological efficacy of a branded drug . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(32), 12931-12935.
• Merton, R. K. (1948). The self-fulfilling prophecy . The Antioch Review, 8(2), 193-210.
• Merton, R. K., & Merton, R. C. (1968).  Social theory and social structure . Simon and Schuster.
• Popper, K. R. (1957). The poverty of historicism . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20.
• Thomas, W. I., & Thomas, D. S. (1928). The child in America. Oxford: Knopf.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

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Expectancy effect ; Pygmalion effect

The self-fulfilling prophecy holds that what a person believes about him/herself (or what others believe about them) will influence their performance. The self-fulfilling prophecy can act positively or negatively, depending on whether expectations are positive or negative.

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In educational contexts, the self-fulfilling prophecy is often used to explain differences in performance among students, such that a high-performing student might be responding to high expectations from others (e.g., teachers, parents, classmates) while a low-performing student might be responding to low expectations. [ 2 ] illustrated the self-fulfilling prophecy through an experiment in which elementary school teachers treated students differently based on their initial positive expectations of those students, and over the course of the school year, students performed in ways that were consistent with teachers’ positive expectations. Subsequent...

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Jones, R. A. (1977). Self-fulfilling prophecies: Social, psychological, and physiological effects of expectancies . Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Snowman, J., & Biehler, R. (2006). Psychology applied to teaching (11th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Tauber, R. T. (1997). Self-fulfilling prophecy: a practical guide to its use in education . Westport: Praeger.

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Vanderlaan, A. (2011). Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. In: Goldstein, S., Naglieri, J.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_2542

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

The Pygmalion Effect

In the 1960s, Robert Rosenthal decided to test how experimenters’ unconscious expectations shaped the results of their studies. He took a group of average rats and labeled half of them bright and half of them dull before he assigned them to his experimental psychology students at Harvard. In the students’ experiments, the “bright” rats made their way through mazes more quickly. But the difference wasn’t intrinsic to the rats: Rosenthal also observed that the students working with the supposedly smarter rats handled the animals more often, and more gently.

In 1964, Rosenthal performed a similar experiment at an elementary school, with teachers and students instead of rats. He selected some students at random, and told teachers that, based on the results of a new IQ test he had administered, they could expect impressive development from these students in the coming year. The teachers’ expectations were fulfilled, and at the end of the year the selected students showed disproportionate gains over other students. Rosenthal observed significant differences in the ways teachers described the students from the two groups: teachers’ descriptions of the supposedly special students revealed that they genuinely believed that these children were more intelligent, and even more likable. Rosenthal and Jacobson concluded that not only did the teachers see what they were looking for, but their expectations caused them to treat students differently, and hence produced the outcomes they expected: they called this the Pygmalion Effect .

Even at the university level , our expectations of our students influence those students’ expectations of themselves. Our expectations, which may be unconscious, can be shaped by stereotypes , departmental culture, and our own histories. Even when we don’t intend it, our students perceive and respond to our expectations—for good or for ill—so there’s incredible potential for us to influence our students’ performance and conduct. We need to take care to make that influence both positive and just.

In practice, this might look like

• Being intentional about demonstrating equally high expectations for all students;
• Attending to our nonverbal communication , like expression, eye contact, tone of voice, listening behaviors, etc., to ensure that we seem to take all student equally seriously;
• Presenting difficult work in terms of challenges that we expect students to meet when they work hard, rather than obstacles we don’t expect them to overcome;
• Refining our assignments so that descriptions are transparent , and the tasks are intellectually challenging;
• Revising our syllabi to communicate our confidence that students will uphold high standards for learning and for academic integrity (rather than suspicion that they will transgress); and
• Contributing to a culture of high expectations in our departments.

If you’d like to revise an assignment or syllabus with the Pygmalion effect in mind, we’re happy to support you. You can schedule a consultation by emailing [email protected] . We look forward to working with you.

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For more than 50 years, Robert Rosenthal has conducted research on the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in everyday life and in laboratory situations. Special interests include the effects of teacher's expectations on students' academic and physical performance, the effects of experimenters' expectations on the results of their research, and the effects of clinicians' expectations on their patients' mental and physical health. During this time he has also been studying the role of nonverbal communication in (a) the mediation of interpersonal expectancy effects and in (b) the relationship between members of small groups. In addition, he has explored sources of artifact in behavioral research and in various quantitative procedures. In the realm of data analysis, his special interests are in experimental design and analysis, contrast analysis, and meta-analysis. His most recent books and articles are about these areas of data analysis and about the nature of nonverbal communication in teacher-student, doctor-patient, manager-employee, judge-jury, and psychotherapist-client interaction. Professor Rosenthal is the recipient of several national awards, including election to Fellow status in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2009), the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology of the American Psychological Foundation (2003), Distinguished Scientific Award for Applications of Psychology (APA, 2002), Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award (APA Division 5, 2002), James McKeen Cattell Award (APS, 2001), Distinguished Scientist Award (SESP 1996), AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research (1993, with Nalini Ambady), Donald Campbell Award (SPSP, 1988), and AAAS Socio-Psychological Prize (1960, with Kermit Fode). He has also been a Guggenheim Fellow, Senior Fulbright Scholar, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Professor Rosenthal served as Co-Chair of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Statistical Inference.

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• Applied Social Psychology
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• Nonverbal Behavior
• Person Perception
• Research Methods, Assessment

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The Pygmalion Effect and the Power of Positive Expectations

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• Harrigan, J. A., Rosenthal, R., & Scherer, K. R. (Eds.). (2005).The new handbook of methods in nonverbal behavior research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Rosenthal, R. (1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research (rev. ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Rosenthal, R. (1987). Judgment studies: Design, analysis, and meta-analysis. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
• Rosenthal, R. (1976). Experimenter effects in behavioral research (enlarged ed.). New York: Irvington.
• Rosenthal, R. (1974). On the social psychology of the self-fulfilling prophecy: Further evidence for pygmalion effects and their mediating mechanisms. New York: MSS Modular.
• Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1992). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development (expanded ed.). New York: Irvington.
• Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (2008). Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
• Rosenthal, R., Rosnow, R. L., & Rubin, D. B. (2000). Contrasts and effect sizes in behavioral research: A correlational approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rosnow, R. L.., & Rosenthal, R. (2008). Beginning behavioral research: A conceptual primer (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
• Rosnow, R. L., & Rosenthal, R. (1997). People studying people: Artifacts and ethics in behavioral research. New York: Freeman.

Journal Articles:

• Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 256-274.
• Harris, M. J., & Rosenthal, R. (1985). Mediation of interpersonal expectancy effects: 31 meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 363-386.
• Rosenthal, R. (2002). Covert communication in classrooms, clinics, courtrooms, and cubicles. American Psychologist, 57, 839-849.
• Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (2003). r equivalent: A simple effect size indicator. Psychological Methods, 8, 492-496.
• Westen, D., & Rosenthal, R. (2003). Quantifying construct validity: Two simple measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 608-618.

Courses Taught:

• Advanced Research Methods (Psych 109)
• Current Research in Quantitative Psychology (Psych 270)
• Experimental Design and Analysis of Variance (Psych 213)
• Psychological Methods: Statistical Procedures (Psych 011)
• Statistical Inference (Psych 211)

Robert Rosenthal Department of Psychology University of California Psychology Building Riverside, California 92521 United States of America

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The Marylu Clayton Rosenthal Dance Studio

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Robert Rosenthal in the UC Riverside dance studio named after his late wife, MaryLu Clayton Rosenthal. Source: http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/910/2751_1hi

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Robert Rosenthal in 2011 looking at a plaque honoring MaryLu Clayton Rosenthal. Source: http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2751

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The limits of self-fulfilling prophecies.

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self-fulfilling prophecy , process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own confirmation. In a self-fulfilling prophecy an individual’s expectations about another person or entity eventually result in the other person or entity acting in ways that confirm the expectations.

A classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the bank failures during the Great Depression . Even banks on strong financial footing sometimes were driven to insolvency by bank runs. Often, if a false rumor started that the bank was insolvent (incapable of covering its deposits), a panic ensued, and depositors wanted to withdraw their money all at once before the bank’s cash ran out. When the bank could not cover all the withdrawals, it actually did become insolvent. Thus, an originally false belief led to its own fulfillment.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are important to the understanding of intergroup relations. Under just the right (or wrong) conditions, inaccurate social stereotypes may lead to their own fulfillment. For example, members of groups stereotyped as more intelligent, competent, or likable can, through the operation of self-fulfilling prophecies, actually become more intelligent, competent, or likable than members of groups stereotyped as less intelligent, competent, or likable. Thus, self-fulfilling prophecies may contribute to the maintenance not only of stereotypes themselves but of the group differences and inequalities that give rise to those stereotypes. Such processes, however, are limited, and the extent to which they contribute to group differences and inequalities is the subject of considerable controversy.

The earliest empirical research on self-fulfilling prophecies examined whether teachers’ false expectations for their students caused students to achieve at levels consistent with those teachers’ expectations. Repeatedly, although not always, research demonstrated that teachers’ expectations are indeed self-fulfilling, as students sometimes come to perform at levels consistent with their teachers’ originally false expectations.

This research has been interpreted by many scholars as providing a powerful insight into social, educational, and economic inequality . Teachers’ expectations seem to systematically advantage students from already advantaged backgrounds and disadvantage students from already disadvantaged backgrounds. To the extent that education is a major stepping-stone toward occupational and economic advancement, self-fulfilling prophecies, it would seem, constitute a major social force operating to prevent the disadvantaged from improving their lot.

Classic studies also showed that both physical attractiveness and racial stereotypes could be self-fulfilling. When men interviewed a woman whom they falsely believed was conventionally physically attractive (accomplished through the use of false photographs in nonface-to-face interviews), not only were the men warmer and friendlier to her, but she became warmer and friendlier in response. Moreover, when white interviewers treated white interviewees in the same cold and distant manner they used with African American interviewees, the performance of the white interviewees suffered.

Self-fulfilling prophecies have been demonstrated in a wide variety of educational, occupational, professional, and informal contexts . They have been demonstrated in experimental laboratory studies, experimental field studies, and naturalistic studies. Indeed, it is fairly easy to string together a few of the classic studies to tell a compelling story about how teachers’ expectations, employers’ expectations, and expectations in everyday interactions victimize people from stigmatized social groups. The logic here is quite simple. Stereotypes are widely shared and inaccurate. Stereotypes lead to inaccurate expectations. These expectations, in turn, are self-fulfilling. According to this perspective, self-fulfilling prophecies constitute a major source of social inequalities and social problems.

For several reasons, however, evidence for the power of self-fulfilling prophecies is far from conclusive. First, some of the classic studies had major methodological problems. Second, many have proven difficult to replicate. Third, the overall power of self-fulfilling prophecies, especially as obtained in naturalistic studies that do not involve experimenters intentionally creating false expectations in participants, is not large at all. Fourth, there currently is about as much evidence that positive self-fulfilling prophecies improve the performance of low-achieving students as there is that negative self-fulfilling prophecies harm their performance. Fifth, considerable evidence indicates that people are not rudderless ships, relentlessly tossed around on the seas of other people’s expectations. Instead, people have their own motivations and goals that enable them to successfully combat others’ false expectations.

Overall, therefore, the evidence does not justify a simple picture of self-fulfilling prophecies as powerful and pervasive sources of social problems. But the picture gets even fuzzier when other research is added to the mix. Although not all stereotypes are 100 percent accurate, it can be argued that most of the empirical studies that have assessed people’s beliefs about groups and then compared those beliefs with criteria regarding what those groups are actually like (census reports, results from hundreds of empirical studies, self-reports) find that people’s beliefs correspond to groups’ characteristics quite well. Indeed, the accuracy of many of the people’s stereotypes (the extent to which people’s beliefs about groups correspond to what those groups are actually like) is one of the largest relationships in all of social psychology .

In addition, the shared component of stereotypes is typically even more accurate than is the individual or idiosyncratic component. Arguably, people do not rigidly and powerfully apply their stereotypes when judging individuals. They often readily jettison their stereotypes when clear and relevant personal information is available about the person being judged, and overall the effect of stereotypes on judging individuals is generally quite small. Thus, some of the key assumptions underlying the “self-fulfilling stereotypes are a powerful and pervasive source of social problems” story, that stereotypes are widely shared and inaccurate and that they powerfully distort expectations for individuals, seem to be largely invalid.

A second important assumption underlying the argument for the power of self-fulfilling prophecies is that even if these prophecies are small in any given study, those small effects, because they likely accumulate over time, can become quite large and hence at least partially account for major social inequalities. For example, if teachers’ expectations increased the IQ of high-expectancy students only 3 points per year and decreased the IQ of low-expectancy students only 3 points per year and if these effects accumulated, then at the end of six years there would be a 36-IQ-point difference between two students who started out with identical IQ test scores but different expectancies.

However, empirical research on self-fulfilling prophecies in education has not provided any evidence of accumulation. Rather than accumulating to become larger and larger over time, the effects of self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom dissipate over time, as they become smaller and smaller. Given the evidence for generally high accuracy in teachers’ expectations, strongly erroneous teachers’ expectations may be the exception rather than the rule. Thus, students may be highly unlikely to be the target of the same type of erroneous expectation year after year, thereby limiting the likelihood that they will be subjected to the same erroneous expectation (and its self-fulfilling effects) year after year.

Nonetheless, the story about the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in social problems should not be completely discarded. Self-fulfilling prophecies probably do play a real yet relatively modest role in creating or maintaining social inequalities based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity , social class , gender, and attractiveness. Moreover, in some contexts this role can be quite large. Some of the largest self-fulfilling prophecy effects ever obtained were found among students from stigmatized social and demographic groups (African American students, lower social class students, and students with histories of low achievement). Additionally, even though educational self-fulfilling prophecies do not accumulate, they can be very long-lasting. Finally, the types of diagnostic labels often used in educational contexts—learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, neurologically impaired—are inaccurately applied sufficiently often that they may frequently create inaccurately low expectations that are indeed self-fulfilling.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Self-Fulfilling Prophecy And The Pygmalion Effect In Management

Introduction.

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (SFP)
• Pygmalion in the Classroom
• Pygmalion in Management
• Pygmalion Experiments in Organizations
• Nonexperimental Pygmalion Research in Organizations
• Leadership and Self-Efficacy: Key Mediators of the Pygmalion Effect
• Practical Application

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy And The Pygmalion Effect In Management by Dov Eden LAST REVIEWED: 28 October 2014 LAST MODIFIED: 28 October 2014 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0014

Robert Rosenthal defined the Pygmalion effect as “the phenomenon whereby one person’s expectation for another person’s behavior comes to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy” ( American Psychologist 58.3 [November 2003], p. 839). The Pygmalion phenomenon characterizes many leader-follower relationships. The “leader” can be a manager or supervisor, a military commander, an athletic coach, or an instructor. When leaders’ expectations of their followers’ are raised, they behave in ways that cause their followers, be they employees, soldiers, athletes, or trainees, to perform better. Pygmalion effects have been produced in schools, work organizations, armies, courtrooms, summer camps, and nursing homes, as well as in the practice of clinical psychologists and consultants. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson’s work Pygmalion in the Classroom ( Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968 , cited under Pygmalion in the Classroom ) first demonstrated the Pygmalion effect experimentally in elementary school classrooms. Meta-analyses consistently confirm the classroom Pygmalion effect. Similarly, there is cumulative field-experimental support for the Pygmalion approach among adults in organizations and work settings, including factories, service organizations, banks, and military units. The Pygmalion effect is an interpersonal motivational phenomenon that begins with high leader expectations. Conveyed to followers orally or nonverbally via leader behavior, the leader’s high expectations augment the followers’ self-expectations and self-efficacy (i.e., their belief in their ability to perform better), boosting motivation and effort, and culminating in enhanced performance. Often, this improved performance reinforces the leader’s high expectations, thus extending an interpersonal exchange to an upward spiral of high expectations sparking high performance and justifying continued high expectations that produce still higher performance. In this way, self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) can become self-sustaining prophecy. However, SFP is a double-edge sword, in that it can be negative. Contrasted with the Pygmalion effect is the negative Golem effect, in which lowering manager expectations impairs subordinate performance—expect dumbbells and you will get dumbbells. Another type of SFP is the Galatea effect, in which the individual’s own high self-expectations become self-fulfilling. The appeal of the Pygmalion approach for management is rooted in its ability to boost performance based on a cost-free investment of managerial mindfulness and communication of high expectations. This implies a two-fold practical agenda: to raise productivity, managers must both implant high expectations and counteract any manifestations of contrary expectations. The essence of the Pygmalion effect is that managers get the workers they expect. Those who expect more, get more. The converse is true, too: those who expect less, get less. All managers can play a Pygmalion role by cultivating in themselves high expectations regarding their subordinates and by fostering in their subordinates high self-efficacy and high self-expectations. High expectations are too important to be left to chance; they should be built into manager-worker relationships and should be part of all managerial leadership training and development.

Origin and History of Pygmalion Research

The notion of self-fulfilling prophecy was born in sociology. Attempting to understand how society influences individuals, W. I. Thomas originated the notion of situations’ affecting individuals if individuals perceive those situations and respond to their own perceptions. This gave birth to Robert K. Merton’s concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which in turn inspired Robert Rosenthal’s theory and experimental work on the Pygmalion effect.

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Can Superstition Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? School Outcomes of Dragon Children of China

In Chinese culture those who are born in the year of the Dragon under the zodiac calendar are believed to be destined for good fortune and greatness, and parents prefer their kids to be born in a Dragon year. Using provincial level panel data, we first show that the number of marriages goes up during the two years preceding a Dragon year and that births jump up in a Dragon year. Using three recently collected micro data sets from China we show that those born in a Dragon year are more likely to have a college education, and that they obtain higher scores at the university entrance exam. Similarly, Chinese middle school students have higher test scores if they are born in a Dragon year. We show that these results are not because of family background, student self-esteem or students’ expectations about their future. We find, however, that the “Dragon” effect on test scores is eliminated when we account for parents’ expectations about their children’s educational and professional success. We find that parents of Dragon children have higher expectations for their children in comparison to other parents, and that they invest more heavily in their children in terms of time and money. We also show that girls are about six cm shorter than boys, but that this height disadvantage is cut by about half if a girl is born in the year of the Dragon and that effect is twice as strong in rural areas. Given that childhood nutrition is related to adolescent height, this suggests that parents may also be investing in Dragon girls in terms of nutrition. The results are insensitive to model specification and estimation strategy, including using an RD design. These results show that even though neither the Dragon children nor their families are inherently different from other children and families, the belief in the prophecy of success and the ensuing investment become self-fulfilling.

We thank Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn, Leyla Mocan, Hanming Fang, Uta Schoenberg, Jeanet Bentzen, Anastasia Litina and Andreas Irmen for helpful suggestions. Seminar participants of the Study of the Religion, Economics and Culture Workshop at Chapman University, Southern Economic Association Conference in Washington D.C., and the 2018 ASREC Europe Conference in Luxembourg City provided useful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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• August 23, 2017

Non-Technical Summaries

• Explaining the Good Fortune of Dragon Year Children Author(s): Naci H. Mocan Han Yu Those born in a Year of the Dragon are more likely than others to obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher — because parents invest more...

Published Versions

Naci Mocan & Han Yu, 2020. " Can Superstition Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? School Outcomes of Dragon Children in China, " Journal of Human Capital, vol 14(4), pages 485-534.

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