The Pygmalion Effect, Growth Mindset, & Learning ft. Robert Rosenthal

Summary

The video explores the Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect, which demonstrates how our expectations can influence the performance of others. Dr. Robert Rosenthal's research shows that labeling can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, impacting areas from education to the workplace. The video advocates for viewing individuals as 'learners,' promoting growth and development, and highlights the importance of positive expectations in leadership.

Takeaways

• 🧠 The Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect, suggests that labels and expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies, influencing the performance of individuals.
• 🐀 In a study with rats, those labeled as 'smart' performed better in mazes not because of the rats' mindset, but because of the different treatment they received from the handlers who believed the labels.
• 🏫 Dr. Robert Rosenthal's research extended to schools where teachers' expectations, influenced by a fake IQ test, significantly affected students' academic progress.
• 📈 High expectation teachers helped students make two years of academic progress in one year, while low expectation teachers led to slight negative gains.
• 🏢 The Pygmalion Effect has been observed in various settings including prisons, classrooms, military training, and corporate environments.
• 👨‍🏫 Teachers' expectations can shape the learning opportunities they provide, which in turn affects student outcomes.
• 💡 The concept of 'Learner' as a label is suggested to be more effective than attaching specific skill-based labels, promoting a growth mindset.
• 🌟 The brain's plasticity supports the idea that everyone has the capacity to improve and learn, challenging the notion of fixed abilities.
• 🏋️‍♀️ Even in sports, where specific skill sets are valued, attaching the label 'Learner' to players encourages a growth mindset and continuous improvement.
• 🔑 Educating leaders about the Pygmalion Effect can positively impact the growth and performance of their teams or students.

Q & A

What is the Pygmalion Effect?

The Pygmalion Effect refers to the phenomenon where high expectations lead to an increase in performance and vice versa. It suggests that labels and expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies, influencing the behavior of those labeled.

How did Dr. Robert Rosenthal's rat study demonstrate the Pygmalion Effect?

In Dr. Rosenthal's rat study, rats were randomly labeled as 'smart' or 'dumb' and then cared for by students who were unaware of the random assignment. The 'smart' rats performed better in maze tests, not because of any inherent difference, but because the students treated them differently based on the label.

What was the outcome of the study where students were labeled as 'bloomers'?

In the study, students labeled as 'bloomers' showed significant improvement in their academic performance compared to those not labeled as such. This improvement was attributed to the teachers' expectations and the way they treated the students, providing them with a more supportive learning environment.

How does the Pygmalion Effect apply to real-world settings beyond the lab?

The Pygmalion Effect applies to real-world settings such as classrooms, military training programs, and corporate environments. It suggests that positive expectations can enhance performance, while negative expectations can hinder it, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is the significance of the term 'Learner' in the context of the Pygmalion Effect?

The term 'Learner' is significant because it detaches the expectation from a specific outcome and instead focuses on the potential for growth. It encourages a mindset where everyone is capable of improvement, regardless of their current skill level.

How does the Pygmalion Effect impact the development of people around us?

The Pygmalion Effect impacts the development of people around us by influencing how we interact with them based on our expectations. High expectations can lead to more support, encouragement, and opportunities for growth, while low expectations can limit these factors.

What is the importance of not sharing negative labels or expectations with the subject?

Sharing negative labels or expectations with the subject can create a self-fulfilling prophecy that limits their potential for growth. It can lead to a fixed mindset, reduced motivation, and fewer opportunities for practice and improvement.

How can leaders apply the findings from the Pygmalion Effect?

Leaders can apply the findings by treating everyone as a 'Learner' and providing opportunities for growth and development. They should avoid attaching labels that limit potential and instead focus on creating an environment that fosters continuous improvement.

What was the result of the study where teachers were taught about the Pygmalion Effect?

In the study where teachers were educated about the Pygmalion Effect, the students taught by those teachers showed greater academic gains compared to students taught by the control group teachers who were not given the training.

How does the concept of 'Learner' relate to the brain's plasticity?

The concept of 'Learner' aligns with the brain's plasticity, which is the brain's ability to change and adapt throughout life. This means that individuals can continue to learn and improve, regardless of age or current ability.

What is the role of a leader in fostering a growth mindset in their team?

A leader plays a crucial role in fostering a growth mindset by setting high but achievable expectations, providing constructive feedback, and creating opportunities for learning and development. They should also model a growth mindset themselves.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 The Pygmalion Effect and Its Impact on Mindsets

The first paragraph introduces the concept of the Pygmalion Effect, which suggests that expectations can influence performance. Dr. Robert Rosenthal, a renowned psychologist, is highlighted for his extensive research on this topic, sometimes referred to as the Rosenthal Effect. The discussion begins with a study involving rats, where labels assigned to the rats as 'smart' or 'dumb' influenced how students treated them, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the 'smart' rats performed better. This study is a metaphor for how our mindsets and the labels we assign can significantly impact the development of those around us.

05:02

📚 The Pygmalion Effect in Educational Settings

The second paragraph delves into the application of the Pygmalion Effect in educational environments. It discusses a study where teachers were given a list of 'bloomers'—students expected to show significant academic progress—who were actually selected at random. The results showed that these students made exceptional progress, illustrating the power of teacher expectations. The narrative emphasizes the importance of treating students as learners with potential for growth, rather than labeling them based on current abilities. It also touches on the broader implications of the Pygmalion Effect in various settings, including prisons and corporate environments.

10:02

🏫 The Power of Labels and Expectations in Learning

The third paragraph continues the discussion on the impact of labels and expectations, particularly in educational contexts. It presents research by Christine Rubie-Davies, which shows that when teachers have high expectations for their students, those students make greater academic gains. The paragraph also addresses the potential for negative labels to hinder student growth and the importance of a growth mindset. The concept of treating everyone as a 'learner' is introduced as a way to foster a positive learning environment and to avoid limiting students' potential.

15:03

🌟 Embracing the Learner Mindset for Growth and Development

The final paragraph wraps up the discussion by emphasizing the importance of a learner mindset. It suggests that viewing individuals as continuous learners, capable of improvement, can lead to significant growth. The paragraph also discusses the implications of this mindset for leaders and educators, highlighting the benefits of teaching about the Pygmalion Effect to these groups. The narrative concludes with a call to action for leaders to embrace the learner mindset and to provide learning opportunities that can enhance the growth and development of those they lead.

Keywords

💡Mindsets

Mindsets refer to the established set of attitudes or beliefs that individuals hold about themselves and their surroundings. In the video, mindsets are discussed in the context of their impact on personal growth and the development of others. The video suggests that our mindsets can shape our expectations and behaviors towards others, which in turn can influence their performance and development.

💡Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect is a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. Named after the Greek mythological figure who fell in love with a statue he carved, the term in the video is used to describe how positive expectations can result in positive outcomes. The video discusses how this effect was first observed in a study with rats and later applied to human subjects, showing that expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

💡Self-fulfilling Prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to come true due to the positive feedback between belief and behavior. In the video, this concept is central to the Pygmalion Effect, where the expectations of teachers or leaders can influence the performance of students or team members, making the initial expectations come true.

💡Learner

The term 'learner' in the video is used to emphasize the potential for growth and improvement in every individual, regardless of their current skill level. It is suggested as a label that encapsulates the idea that anyone can learn and develop new skills. The video argues that treating people as learners can motivate them to strive for improvement and can lead to better outcomes.

💡Expectations

Expectations in the video are portrayed as powerful forces that can significantly affect performance. They are the beliefs or预判 that one holds about the potential or likely performance of others. The video discusses how high expectations can lead to better performance (Pygmalion Effect), while low expectations can hinder growth.

💡Growth Mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and effort. In the video, this concept is contrasted with a fixed mindset, where abilities are seen as static. The video promotes the idea that a growth mindset can lead to continuous improvement and learning.

💡Labels

Labels in the video refer to the categorizations or tags that people assign to others based on their perceived abilities or characteristics. The video discusses how labels, especially when they are tied to expectations, can influence behavior and outcomes. Positive labels can inspire and motivate, while negative labels can limit potential.

💡Leadership

Leadership in the video is discussed in the context of how leaders' expectations can shape the performance and development of their teams or students. Effective leadership is portrayed as being aware of the power of expectations and using them to foster a growth mindset and continuous improvement.

💡Plasticity

Plasticity in the video refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. The video cites research showing that the brain remains plastic throughout life, which supports the idea that individuals can learn and improve at any age, challenging the notion of fixed abilities.

💡Accountability

Accountability in the video is discussed as a responsibility to support and encourage the growth and learning of others. It is suggested that viewing individuals as learners holds both leaders and learners accountable for continuous improvement and development.

💡Intervention

Intervention in the video refers to the act of introducing a new element or strategy into a situation with the aim of improving outcomes. In the context of the video, teaching educators about the Pygmalion Effect is an intervention that leads to better performance and growth in students.

Highlights

Mindsets have a profound impact on the development of those around us.

Dr. Robert Rosenthal, a renowned psychology researcher, has extensively studied the Pygmalion Effect.

The Pygmalion Effect suggests that labels and expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

In a rat study, rats labeled as 'smart' performed better due to the way they were treated by students.

A similar effect was observed in students when teachers were led to believe certain students would 'bloom' academically.

The 'bloomers' in the study showed significant academic progress compared to their peers.

The Pygmalion Effect has been replicated in various settings, including prisons, classrooms, and corporate environments.

Christine Rubie-Davies' research indicates that teacher expectations significantly influence student outcomes.

Students with 'high expectation' teachers made two years of academic progress in one year.

The effect is more pronounced in real-world settings due to the presence of both positive and negative labels.

Negative labels can lead to a fixed mindset, reducing the likelihood of improvement.

Dr. Rosenthal advises treating everyone as a 'learner' to avoid limiting beliefs and encourage growth.

The concept of 'learner' is supported by neuroscience, which shows the brain's plasticity allows for continuous improvement.

Leaders can apply the Pygmalion Effect by focusing on providing learning opportunities rather than attaching specific outcomes.

Teaching the concept of the Pygmalion Effect to leaders has been shown to positively impact the growth of their teams.

The video concludes by emphasizing the importance of viewing individuals as learners to foster growth and development.

Transcripts

- We talk a lot about how our mindsets

impact our capacity to grow,

but how do our mindsets impact the development

of the people around us?

In searching for this answer,

I discovered some research

that I think deserves way more attention.

- My name is Bob Rosenthal and I'm a just retired professor

of many, many years, 20 years here,

37 years at Harvard before that,

five years at North Dakota before that.

- That's Dr. Robert Rosenthal.

He's one of the hundred most cited psychology researchers

of all time.

He's spent most of his career looking at a topic

called the Pygmalion Effect.

He's done so much work in this field

that some people actually call it the Rosenthal Effect.

So I'm sitting in his office

and the first question I ask is the exact one

on your mind right now.

What's the Pygmalion Effect?

And he goes, we have to start

by talking about a study we did with rats.

So he is in charge of this lab

that does some research on rats.

And one night he sneaks in.

- [Robert] We went into the lab,

we hung little signs on cages

based on a table of random numbers.

- Half of the rats cages were labeled the smart rats,

the other half of the cages were labeled the dumb rats.

A group of students comes in and they take care of the rats

throughout the week.

They feed them and care for them.

At the end of the week, they run the rats through the maze

and what they discovered was weird.

- And we found, yeah, if you're an experimenter,

a human experimenter running rats

and you think your rats are smart,

they're gonna learn mazes faster

than if you thought your rats were dumb.

- What in the world is happening here?

One thing I forgot to tell you

is these rats in this study, they couldn't read.

So this wasn't about like their mindsets and attitudes,

like, oh I'm a smart rat

and that gives me the confidence

to run through the maze better, of course not!

But someone in the study could read

and that was the students.

What they discovered,

the essence that the Pygmalion Effect

is it's saying are labels and expectations

can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

It's exactly what happened.

The smart rats actually became smarter.

They did run through the maze better, but it wasn't magic.

It's they ran through the maze better

because the students treated them differently

and they treated them differently

because of the label on their cage.

So he writes up this first study

and they publish it in a national journal

and in the last sentence he poses a question.

If this happens to rats, I wonder what happens to students?

- So a couple weeks after this science journal

was published, I get this letter from Lenore Jacobson

who's a school principal in south San Francisco.

And she says, "If you ever graduate to real kids

in real schools, have I got a school for you?"

So he has all the teachers and says,

I've created a better IQ test.

My test is better 'cause I can identify academic bloomers.

Maybe not the students with the best grades now,

but the ones that will make the most progress this year.

So they give all the students this exam,

they process the results

and they give the school a list of names.

Here are your bloomers, the special ones.

Rosenthal returns to the school one year later

and gives the same students the same exam.

And what they found is the bloomers do way better

than the other students.

In some of the classes,

they more than doubled the progress

of the students not on the list.

So the teachers are amazed.

They're like, wow, how do you identify a bloomer?

Like what's the secret to this test?

And he goes, I just gave you 20 random names.

Now think about that.

Just like in the rat study, the students weren't aware

of the label, but the teachers were.

And when they analyzed the data what they find is,

yeah, this label, this expectation becomes true

because once again it changes the way

that the teachers treat the students.

They would actually treat the bloomers a little bit better.

They would create a warmer climate

and teach them more challenging material.

- That was an important mediating mechanism

is you teach more stuff to those

for whom you have higher expectation.

- So the label or expectation

becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy

because we make it become true.

Now one thing to keep in mind here

is this isn't just two studies

that show the power of the Pygmalion Effect.

- All kinds of other studies were done

on all kinds of experimental tasks.

And as I say, there's over 500 of those studies

and I've meta analyzed them.

- The Pygmalion Effect

has been studied in prison classrooms,

military training programs,

and even the corporate world.

We found some great work by Christine Rubie-Davies

from the University of Auckland.

- My major interest is in teacher expectations

and the ways that they influence student outcomes,

the way that teacher expectations influence opportunity

to learn.

- In one of her earlier studies,

she had a bunch of teachers fill out questionnaires

on each one of their students asking at what level

do you expect this student to achieve

by the end of the year?

They were able to take those answers and compare them

against where the students currently achieved.

This allowed them to analyze sort of the gap

between the starting point for the student

and where the teacher expected them to end up.

With that they were able to identify two subsets

of teachers from the pool, high expectation teachers

where there's a big gap between the starting point

and where they expected their class to end up.

And low expectation teachers where there's a small gap

between the starting point and where they expected

their class to end up.

And after a year they process all the data,

and guess what they see?

- The kids who were with high expectation teachers

made average gains of two years academic progress

in one year whereas the kids with low expectation teachers

on average made slight negative relative gains

over the year.

So there was a huge contrast in terms of academic outcome.

- Quick question, what if like the teachers were just right,

what if they had higher expectations for better students?

- No, that's not true.

Because that was one of the things

that I found really interesting.

There were a couple of experiments done in the States

in the 90s where they actually taught kids

from the bottom group and put them in the top group.

And by the end of the year

they were achieving at the same levels.

So yeah, no, it definitely wasn't about the kids.

Kids can make huge gains in a year,

in just one year when teachers believe in them.

- The Pygmalion Effect effect is probably even more powerful

in the real world than the lab.

And there's two big reasons for this.

First, when they do research like this,

they never give a negative label.

It's only positive.

It's like bloomer or nothing.

Now in the rat study they did,

because they weren't working with humans.

It was smart and dumb.

But when they work with humans,

it's never a negative label, just positive.

But if you think about it in the real world,

we have both positive and negative labels.

You are smart, you are dumb, you are a math person,

you are not a math person,

you are a leader, you're not a leader.

So usually we have the negative label

which I think will create even more of a gap.

And the other thing is in this research,

they never tell the subject the label.

But we do this all the time in the real world.

I might believe that you're not a leader

and I'm probably gonna tell you that.

I might believe that you're not a math person,

and I'm gonna tell you that.

And once we share this negative label or expectation

with the subject, it becomes a double edged sword.

- You know, they're labeled.

Well, you are in the low group, you are no good.

So kids, I mean, you start at five, you go through school.

By the time you reach 11 or 12,

have you got any confidence left?

Of course you haven't.

Have you got any self belief left?

Of course you haven't.

Because why would you wanna stay at school

with that continual message that you are not good enough.

- This is the fixed mindset that we've talked about

in a lot of our other videos.

If I don't believe I'm a math person,

I'm probably not gonna practice very much.

If I don't believe I'm creative,

I'm not gonna put myself into those situations.

So now the subject,

if they believe the limiting expectation,

they're going to limit their experiences in practice

and I as the leader are gonna limit them as well.

And we're gonna see even more of a gap

between the positive labels and the negative labels.

So what do we do?

This is the question that I was itching to ask Rosenthal.

How do we take all of these studies

and put them into practice?

How do we apply it?

Now in my head, I thought it was an easy application.

I'm like, oh, the label,

the expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So we should just have really high expectations

and then they'll become true.

Like if I'm a math teacher,

it's okay everyone, everyone can get a hundred percent

in my class.

Or in the workplace, it's like everyone's capable

of a five out five on the performance review.

And I said this out loud in the interview

and Rosenthal kind of laughs.

He goes, I don't think that's the best application

for this research because it's not always the case.

You could provide equal reps and support and challenges

to everyone in a group,

but very rarely are we gonna see equal outcomes

across the board.

Like some students are gonna be better at math

than other students.

Some people in the workplace are gonna excel

in different areas than others.

His advice here actually changed the name of my company.

He goes, we shouldn't attach an outcome to the label.

The label we should use is Learner.

It's the best word ever.

You might be better at math than me

but we can both get better at math.

You might be more creative than me, but we're both learners.

We can both get more creative if we practice.

That word holds us accountable.

If I truly believe that the people around me are learners,

no longer can I put them in boxes

and give them these stories and limiting beliefs,

no longer can I tell you you're not a math person,

not a leader.

Now treating someone as a learner

doesn't mean I'm fake either.

It's not like you're a learner,

therefore you are the best at math

when maybe that's not the case.

Treating someone as a learner is saying,

look, you know and I know

math might not be your best subject

but math is a skill and skills are built.

It's gonna take some practice

and some struggle and experimentation.

But if you do the work, you can get better at math

and I'm here to help you do that.

That is a thousand times more effective

than telling someone the story

about what they can't learn, can't do.

And the best thing about the word learner

is it's not some fluffy or fake optimistic approach

that we're peddling here.

The word learner is grounded in science.

- I was for many years the professor

at the University of California at San Francisco,

and we did experiments,

other scientists had also done experiments

earlier and in parallel that showed that the brain in fact

was massively plastic, you know, at an older age.

At any age, and any ability, and I could improve it.

It turns out that plasticity in the brain

is its big trick.

It's the main thing that makes it so fabulous.

Absolutely everyone has the capacity

to be better at virtually everything.

With that understanding miracles can occur,

in your capacity to understand or do complicated things

that you never thought you'd able to do.

You are designed be continuously improvable.

Nobody's done!

Nobody's defined what their limits are.

I can tell you whatever you think your limits are,

you're wrong.

You can be better next week a little bit,

but in a year you could be a lot better

and almost anything that matters to you.

- That's a neuroscientist that's been studying brains

since the 70s.

And for someone from that world to be that definitive,

it carries so much weight.

Absolutely everyone can get better at virtually anything.

From the individual standpoint,

we really want our people to believe that about themself

that they have the capacity to grow.

That's the essence of a growth mindset.

From the leadership standpoint,

it actually funnels back to the same word.

We wanna celebrate the differences in our people.

Of course, they all have different strengths and weaknesses

and that's great.

And at the same time, every person we work with is a learner

and we need to treat them accordingly.

- What are the assumptions that I make about kids

in my own class and what does that mean in terms

of the kinds of learning opportunities that I give to kids,

because for me, that's the core of teacher expectations

is the learning opportunities.

- A couple months ago, I delivered this topic

to a major league baseball team

and a division one college football team.

And they seemed to really respond to the idea,

but there was one area where they were having some trouble.

They were like, well, in the sports world,

we have all sorts of labels that we use

and they're usually about the player's skill set.

There's strengths and weaknesses.

It's like, oh my left fielder has great range

but can't hit a curve.

Are we supposed to abandon all of these labels?

Of course not!

My best advice is attach the label learner on top of it.

I have great range and struggle hitting a curve.

I can get better range and get better at hitting a curve

because I'm a learner.

Now the other thing we have to be clear on,

I'm not saying everyone on the accounting team

is gonna become professional keynote speakers overnight,

or that our outside hitter is gonna become our setter

in one season.

It takes a lot of time to develop skills.

But what we are saying is there's hundreds of skills

that can make each one of us better at what we do.

Everyone on the accounting team can become better

at communication, storytelling, connection.

Of course they can.

Our outside hitter can definitely get better at setting

if they're allowed to practice.

- Of course, there's individual differences

in what kids can learn.

Some of them are smarter than others.

But still any particular person,

I don't care if they're really high IQ to really low IQ,

they can learn probably more than you think they can.

- Okay, we've kind of hit this from every single angle

like what it is, why it matters, how it affects others.

And where I want to end the video is,

well, what happens

if we actually share this information with leaders?

Our friend Christine Rubie-Davies has done some studies

on exactly that.

- She actually went in and taught educators about this

and in random half of the schools

she trained the teachers about this.

And then the others,

they were just the control group, nothing.

- [Christine] We got much bigger gains for the kids

who were with the intervention teachers.

And then I did a paper with Bob Rosenthal

where we looked at, well did it make a difference

if the kids were with teachers

in high versus low socioeconomic, boys versus girls,

one ethnicity versus others,

did it affect younger kids more than older, whatever?

Whatever way we cut the data up,

the intervention kids did better

than if they were with control group teachers.

- So to summarize, our beliefs about others

certainly change how we treat them.

Now we can learn to use that to our advantage.

When we look at the people around us as learners

and treat them accordingly,

this can have a positive impact on their growth.

And I think the cool thing is like we just saw,

when we teach this material to leaders,

it impacts the growth of their people.

To be honest, this is one of the most fun projects

I've ever worked on.

It was an honor getting to interview Robert Rosenthal,

Christine Rubie-Davies, Michael Merzenich,

and we really went all in on the visuals with this one.

So I hope you like it.

We have more on the way.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music)