The Pygmalion Study

In 1968 Rosenthal and Jacobson conducted the classic study: Pygmalion in the Classroom which gave rise to the term Pygmalion effect. The researchers gave elementary school children from grades 1 through 6 a test of nonverbal intelligence at the start of the academic year. Teachers were told this test predicted which students would bloom intellectually during the year. Actually the researchers randomly identified 20% of the school population as intellectual bloomers and gave the names of these students to their teachers. Teachers were not aware of the deception: the test did NOT predict intellectual blooming and the names they were given bore no relation to test scores. Teachers taught in their usual fashion and students were retested after one semester, one year and 2 years. For the first two tests students were in the classes of the teachers who were given the names of the bloomers. For the last test, students were in different classes with new teachers who had not been given the bloomers’ names.

After the first years significant differences in intelligence occurred between the bloomers and the control students ( those students who had not been identified as bloomers). The differences were greater among students in grades 1 and 2. During the subsequent year these young bloomers lost their advantage, but bloomers in the upper grades showed an increasing advantage over control students. Differences were greater among average achievers than they were among high and low achievers. Bloomers gained significantly more than control students in their grades in reading; these differences were greater among average and younger students. Overall the differences between bloomers and control students were small both in reading and on the intelligence test.

Rosenthal & Jacobson concluded that teacher expectations can act as self-fulfilling prophesies because students achievements comes to reflect those expectations.

With regard to the grade level difference the researchers suggested that younger children’s advantage may stem from their close personal contact with teachers and that the advantage disappears when students loose this contact with the influencing teacher. Older students may function better autonomously after they move to a new teacher.

The conclusions of this study were controversial. It has been criticized on conceptual and methodological grounds. There have been several attempts to replicate this study but not all have been successful.

Back to Asperger-Advice.com Homepage