Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's 1968 study tested whether a teacher's expectations of a pupil could itself shape that pupil's academic performance. Jacobson, then principal of a South San Francisco elementary school, and Rosenthal, a Harvard psychologist she had approached after reading his earlier work on experimenter-expectancy effects, had teachers told that a randomly chosen fifth of their pupils, chosen with no relation to any real test result, were due for a marked intellectual growth spurt that year.
Facts
Key FindingChildren's performance was enhanced if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from them: first- and second-grade pupils arbitrarily labeled as growth spurters showed statistically significant IQ gains over the school year compared with their untagged classmates, though the effect was weaker and less consistent in the older grades tested. 1 Method
Study DesignRandomized Controlled Trial 1 Participants Connections
Associated With
The founding 1968 classroom study that first demonstrated the effect.
The Rosenthal-Jacobson classroom-expectancy study is the best-known empirical demonstration of a self-fulfilling prophecy in psychology.
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Open Questions
Source Wikipedia: Pygmalion Effect
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Sources
1. Wikipedia: Pygmalion Effect
Wikimedia FoundationRosenthal-Jacobson study section
Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be "intellectual bloomers" that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The bloomers' names were made known to the teachers.
Wikipedia summary: Pygmalion in the Classroom
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's 1968 study tested whether a teacher's expectations of a pupil could itself shape that pupil's academic performance.
- Open Questions: Did later studies replicate Rosenthal and Jacobson's original Pygmalion in the Classroom effect?
View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
Did later studies replicate Rosenthal and Jacobson's original Pygmalion in the Classroom effect?
Rosenthal originally claimed the treated group's IQ gain exceeded the control group's by 24.8 points and that the gain was persistent and widespread, but the instrument used to assess the children's IQ was seriously flawed, and studies since the 1980s have repeatedly failed to replicate a strong effect, instead finding only a weak effect in a small minority of students (5 to 10 percent), one that resets after a period of weeks.
What would resolve this A large, pre-registered classroom replication using a validated IQ instrument and blinded teacher-expectation manipulation, tracking effect persistence over a full school year rather than a period of weeks.
Educational psychology and psychometricsWikipedia: Pygmalion Effect
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