Pygmalion Effect - High expectations lead to improved performance

The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area.The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, in their book, applied the idea to teachers' expectations of their students. And, they saw that it  affected the students' performance. This view has been undermined partially by subsequent research.

 

Rosenthal and Jacobson held that high expectations lead to better performance and low expectations lead to worse.  Both effects lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the expectation comes true simply because the person believed in it. According to the Pygmalion effect, the targets of the expectations internalize their positive labels, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly; a similar process works in the opposite direction in the case of low expectations.

 

 The idea behind the Pygmalion effect is that increasing the leader's expectation of the follower's performance will result in better performance of the follower.