The Pygmalion, the Golem and the monster study

At the beginning of 2020 I decided this would be the year that I would dig a little deeper into understanding what’s under the hood of why I think the way I do. Trying to figure out a bit more about the wiring of how I form opinions and decisions and identify the gaps and biases in the process that can help me make better choices.

It’s lead me down a bunch of different and super interesting rabbit holes, and one of those rabbit holes that really stuck with me was around two psychological phenomena called the Pygmalion Effect and the Golem Effect.

The Pygmalion Effect

Pygmalion was an ancient Greek sculptor who once created a sculpture so beautiful that he fell in love with it. He prayed to the goddess Venus to bring him a wife just as beautiful as his statue. Instead, Venus made the statue come to life.

The Pygmalion effect is a psychological event that suggests that a belief in high expectations results in actual improved performance. Just as Pygmalion’s obsession with his statue resulted in it becoming real, so too can believing in an outcome result in the same.

Another way of thinking about it is as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Essentially, the Pygmalion effect is confirmation bias we hold of ourselves and those around us, and how that confirmation bias results in different actions.

The most well-known study on the Pygmalion effect was one by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson. Rosenthal and Jacobson conducted a study of school children that they tested their IQ at the beginning of the experiment and then grouped into two cohorts they labeled The Gifted Students and The Control Group. Both groups were chosen at random, with neither group containing more proven intelligent students than the other. Students were not told of the labelling of the groups, however their teachers were told by the researchers which cohort was 'Gifted' and which was control. At the end of the study, the students had their IQ tested again, and whilst both had an improved score from their baseline tests, the ‘gifted’ cohort scored significantly better.

But why? Both groups had students of the same baseline intelligence and the same teachers.

It turns out that because the teachers were aware of which were ‘gifted’ vs ‘control’, the teachers paid more attention and provided more support to the gifted cohort. The teachers bias towards ‘knowing’ the Gifted group was more intelligent resulted in them treating them as such and encouraging them more towards what they believed they could achieve.

The Golem Effect

A Golem is a creature from Jewish folklore. The Golem is formed out of clay and was created to protect the Jews of Prague, but over time the Golem’s beliefs and actions started to become more corrupt until eventually it got so out of hand, it needed to be destroyed. Just like everything else, there’s a Simpson episode about it too.

The Golem effect is the opposite of the Pygmalion effect. Whereas the Pygmalion effect suggests that positive reinforcement will commonly result in improvement and positive outcomes, the Golem effect states that negative reinforcement often results in the same, both in the individual conveying the opinion, but also in the individual on the receiving end of that opinion.

1. My belief about what you'll do is negative...
2. Therefore my actions towards you are based on negativity, which results in...
3. Your response being a action in response to those negative actions which...
4. Reinforce my negative belief towards what I expect you'll do...

Repeat.

When you expect the worst, the actions you take result in an outcome more conducive for it to occur.

The Monster Study

Perhaps the most notable study that highlights the Golem Effect was a study conducted in the 1930’s in Iowa, USA that has become to be known appropriately as ‘the Monster Study’. Dr Wendall Johnson - having grown up with a stutter himself - wanted to understand why some children developed a stutter. Whether it was nature, or nurture.

But he needed candidates for the study, and because it was the 30’s; not an era too well known for ethical decisions when it came to experiments, he went to the most obvious place at the time to find candidates to experiment on - the local orphanage.

22 children were selected, some with a stutter, but most without. The children were divided into two groups. These groups were outwardly called the ‘the normal speakers’ and ‘the stutterers'. Both groups contained stuttering and non-stuttering children.

For five months Johnson’s team monitored and communicated with the groups. The 'normal' group was constantly praised for how articulate they were and how wonderful their ability to communicate was. The ‘stutterers’ however were constantly told their speech was poor and that they could not communicate effectively. They were given no positive reinforcement that they could ever improve, in fact they were constantly told they wouldn't.

Remember, this group also had kids in it that had never had a stutter to begin with.

So, what happened?

After five months, the ‘normal’ group, with the exception of a single child who’s stutter improved somewhat, didn’t change at all. Their ability to articulate and pronounce words remained largely the same.

In the stuttering group however, every child with a stutter maintained their stutter and five of the six children who didn’t previously have a stutter, developed one.

Not only that, but these children (some who were only 5 years old) started to withdraw from socialising and some stopped speaking all together. Their schoolwork suffered and they developed emotional and psychological issues. One student later declared those 5 months ruined her life.

Whilst the intentions of the study were in good faith, it's no surprise why this study eventually was to become known as 'The Monster Study'.

In 2007 the living victims of the study successfully sued the University of Iowa.

The Monster Study remains one of the best (and worst) studies of the Golem effect in action within a controlled environment.

You can read more about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/magazine/the-stuttering-doctor-s-monster-study.html

Incorporating the Pygmalion and Golem effects into your toolkit

Both the Pygmalion and Golem effects are two very powerful nudges that we can, and often do without maybe realising, use day-to-day. Both show us that our reality can not only be negotiated, but also manipulated by ourselves and others.

The beauty of the Pygmalion effect is that it can create literal positive change in what occurs.

If a teacher thinks a student is talented, then their interactions towards that student will tend to nurture the actions that create that belief. Conversely, the Golem effect can go a long way to help explain how things like racism, sexism or even stigmatism towards more marginalised cohorts in the community impacted by things like mental health, homelessness and disability occur and persist. If we believe it's so, then we're more likely to do things to make it so.

This isn’t to suggest that we can immediately do anything if we just believe we can, like some sort of Oprah book of the month magic trick. Nor is it a silver bullet to make everyone a high performer instantly. You can't wake up one day and believe yourself into knowing how to be a doctor. You are still gonna be limited by things such as physical ability, lack of knowledge, environment, etc.

But it does suggest that these mental models; the way we think about achieving that goal, can both break down and put up barriers preventing us progressing towards being better at something.

Simply being conscious of both the Pygmalion and Golem effect in your everyday interactions – both by you and those around you - can help to overcome these covert psychological barriers that are occurring in the background that may be getting in the way of success.

If we actively try to switch our mental model towards the best possible outcome rather than the worst, we can nudge ourselves and those around use towards those better outcomes.

It’s a powerful tool in your tool kit, and one that’s been proven time and time again with consistent results in everything from lab mice, through to CEO's.

“The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often, they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”

– Carl Sagan

Thanks for reading.

You can find more ramblings, links and other stuff like this (and completely unlike this) that I dig here: https://twitter.com/DaylanDoes

Wanna read more about this stuff? Try this:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-writers/201210/using-self-fulfilling-prophecies-your-advantage

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster-study-still-stings/

ttps://www.duq.edu/about/centers-and-institutes/center-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-and-learning-at-duquesne/pygmalion

https://hbr.org/2003/01/pygmalion-in-management