Pygmalion effect

The phenomenon in which higher expectations from one person contribute to another person’s improved performance, partly by shaping how the first person treats them.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: A belief or expectation that helps bring about the outcome it predicts. The Pygmalion effect is a specific self-fulfilling prophecy driven by one person’s expectations of another.
Oak School experiment: A 1960s field study in which elementary teachers were told that selected pupils might show unusual intellectual growth. This study supplied the best-known demonstration of teacher expectations influencing student outcomes.
Pygmalion: A figure in classical mythology who falls in love with a statue he has made. The effect takes its name from the mythic sculptor whose creation becomes animated.
Golem effect: A phenomenon in which low expectations contribute to poorer performance by the people who are expected to do poorly. It is the negative counterpart to the Pygmalion effect.
Self-fulfilling prophecy in education: The process by which educational expectations help shape students’ subsequent academic experiences or outcomes. Studies examine which classroom conditions allow teacher expectations to become self-fulfilling.
Interpersonal expectancy effect: A process in which one person’s expectations influence another person’s behavior or performance through interaction. This broader term captures the social process through which expectations shape performance.
Robert Rosenthal: An American psychologist known for research on experimenter effects and interpersonal expectations. Rosenthal helped design and interpret the Oak School study.
Metamorphoses: A Latin narrative poem by Ovid that retells myths of transformation, including Pygmalion’s story. Ovid’s account is the best-known classical source for the name’s mythic reference.
Galatea effect: A performance improvement associated with a person’s own positive expectations about their ability. Unlike the Pygmalion effect, the expectation originates primarily within the person whose performance changes.
Teacher bias: Systematic differences in teachers’ perceptions or treatment of students associated with student characteristics or group membership. Bias may shape whose abilities teachers recognize and whose expectations become consequential.

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Thomas theoremBroader topic: Teacher expectations can shape student opportunities and performance in ways that fulfill those expectations.