The Pygmalion Effect
By bert on February 16, 2009 at 4:16 PM in Current Affairs
When I was in college getting my education degree I read a book that profoundly affected me and my eventual teaching style. In fact, it has affected my entire life. That book was Pygmalion In the Classroom, by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson.
Pygmalion
The basic premise and findings of Rosenthal’s and Jacobsen’s research is that when teachers expect students to do well they do; and when teachers expect children to not do well, they do not.
Pretty simple, right?
At the time when I was in college this was a pretty revolutionary idea in the field of education. Today it is accepted as true as there has been plenty of research that supports Rosenthal’s and Jacobesn’s theory.
In fact, business and management have known of the effect for years.
It is often called the self-fullfilling prophecy.
Eric Garner, one of the best-known writers and trainers in the personal development and management world says, “A team does as well as you and the team think they can. This idea is known as “the self-fulfilling prophecy”. When you believe the team will perform well, in some strange, magical way they do. And similarly, when you believe they won’t perform well, they don’t.
“There is enough experimental data to suggest that the self-fulfilling prophecy is true.”
I thought of Pygmalion in the Classroom again a few days ago when I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Bradley Schiller titled, Obama’s Rhetoric Is the Real ‘Catastrophe’
In short, Mr. Schiller was stating what I learned lo those many, many years ago. Except he was now applying it to the President’s negative words and fear mongering about the economy.
This is what he had to say:
“President Barack Obama has turned fear mongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.
“In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.
“This fear mongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics.”
How true. How true. How true.
It is also bad leadership. America is a team, and Obama is the coach. Instead of scaring the beeheebies out of us, he should be our leader and he should be offering hope. He should instill in us that yes, we can make it through these tough days, as did those who survived other tough days in America. He should be helping us to keep our spirits up and offer inspiration.
According to ACCEL TEAM, a management consulting firm:
“As it is known and taught today in management and education circles, the notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy was conceptualized by Robert Merton a professor of sociology at Columbia University. In a 1957 work called “Social Theory and Social Structure,” Merton said the phenomenon occurs when “a false definition of the situation evokes a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.”
“In other words, once an expectation is set, even if it isn’t accurate, we tend to act in ways that are consistent with that expectation.”
So Obama is setting an expectation in the minds of Americans that might cause people to act in such a way as to bring on the worst scenario possible. Furthermore, and even worse, he is doing this on false assumptions.
The research has shown that how we believe the world is and what we believe it can become has a powerful effect on how things turn out. The purpose of the some of the research and the experiments performed was to support the hypothesis that reality can be influenced by the expectations of others.
Bradley Schiller continues his editorial in the Wall Street Journal by looking at the numerical facts about this economic downturn and compares them to even worse times:
“…… our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate.
Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.
This was reflected in unemployment rates. The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. That’s more than three percentage points below the 1982 peak (10.8%) and not even a third of the peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can’t equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.
Other economic statistics also dispel any analogy between today’s economic woes and the Great Depression. Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That’s comparable to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%. It is nothing like 1930, when GDP fell by 9%, or 1931, when GDP contracted by another 8%, or 1932, when it fell yet another 13%.
Auto production last year declined by roughly 25%. That looks good compared to 1932, when production shriveled by 90%. The failure of a couple of dozen banks in 2008 just doesn’t compare to over 10,000 bank failures in 1933, or even the 3,000-plus bank (Savings & Loan) failures in 1987-88. Stockholders can take some solace from the fact that the recent stock market debacle doesn’t come close to the 90% devaluation of the early 1930s.
Mr. Obama’s analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they’re also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren’t likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. [The Pygmalion effect and self fulfilling prophecy]
In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup. Beyond that, fear mongering can trigger a political stampede to embrace a “recovery” package that delivers a lot less than it promises. [The Pygmalion effect and self-fulfilling prophecy]
A more cool-headed assessment of the economy’s woes might produce better policies.”
I am not saying that Obama or the nation can turn this economic crisis around with positive thinking. What I am saying is that Obama does not have to make matters worse by engaging in the politics of fear, especially after running a campaign of hope.
And I would add, would be better for the economy and might stave off a self fulfilling prophecy, or the Pygmalion effect.
I am not saying that Obama or the nation can turn this economic crisis around by engaging in positive thinking. What I am saying is that Obama does not have to make matters worse by engaging in the politics of fear, especially after running a campaign of hope.
That is what a real leader would do.
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