This weekend, I came across a post by my colleague and friend Janesha on LinkedIn about the Pygmalion and Galatea effect. You could find his post from this link.
In the past, I’ve come across the phenomenon of the Pygmalion effect in the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Because of this, I knew how the Pygmalion effect can either make or break a person. I also knew how the Galatea effect along with the Pygmalion effect can play a key role in our daily life either as a person in society or as an employee in an organization.
I’m a strong believer in our mindset being almost everything in each of our lives. After seeing Janeha’s post, it got me thinking further about how the Pygmalion effect and the Galatea effect could play a huge role in our lives.
Pygmalion and Galatea, you say!
Before I dwell further, let me introduce you to Pygmalion and Galatea.
The Pygmalion effect or Rosenthal effect is a phenomenon that states where high expectations lead to high performance. Id est, If we perceive someone to be successful, the chances are they will. And not forgetting vice versa! If we perceive someone to be unsuccessful, the chances are they will be unsuccessful.
The Galatea effect is the phenomenon of one’s belief and trust in one’s abilities and potential to succeed. Id est, the belief in I know I can be successful.
With the introductions now in order, let me now elaborate further.
The Stage
Picture this! You’ve got a college football coach starting to coach a new team. On the first day, the coach observes that one of the team members; Joe, reminds him of a really good football player. On the other hand, he also observes another team member; Brian, who reminds him of an annoying kid the coach had to put up with during his earlier years.
Unconsciously, these perceptions and beliefs by the coach on each of them eventually affect his actions towards them. When Joe enters the field, the coach is happy, and he expects high performance from Joe. The coach encourages Joe and makes sure he puts in an extra effort to guide and mentor Joe. When Brian enters the field, the coach is not as happy and he does not expect much performance from Brian. He does not show much interest in guiding and mentoring Brian and rarely shows appreciation towards Brian. The Pygmalion effect!
These perceptions and actions of the coach eventually affect the beliefs of the players about themselves. Joe feels that the coach values him. He feels confident and thus beliefs in his own success. Brian on the other hand feels less valued by his coach, thus leads to his disbelief in his own success. The Galatea effect!
In reality
We all can relate in one way or the other to the relationship between the coach, Joe and Brian. This setting could have easily been between a teacher and two students. Others perceptions and beliefs can affect our own beliefs and our actions.
And this is where the Galatea effect makes its entry. In my comment in Janesha’s post, I mentioned that the Pygmalion and Galatea effect can either make or break a person. If we eventually believe that we can succeed, the chances are that we will. On the other hand, if the belief is that if we would not succeed, the chances are we won’t. But this is where our own mental agility plays a crucial role. This is where we do not allow ourselves to be broken!
A segment of society has its nasty ways of showing anyone that they may not be able to succeed in something they are working towards. Thus a negative Pygmalion effect is portrayed and has a negative Galatea effect on us. Our mental agility needs to be strong enough to be able to turn around this negative Galatea effect to a positive one and thus poise our belief in being successful. This eventually will lead up to our actions portraying the belief we have in our mind on being successful, which eventually becomes a turnaround factor on the negative Pygmalion effect on us in the first place. This is how we do not allow ourselves to be broken!
Long Story Short
The Pygmalion effect states high expectations by others on us leads to high performance.
A high expectation on us can set a positive Galatea effect on us thus contributing to our beliefs as being successful which portrays in our actions which leads to the continuous high performance by us.
However, a low expectation on us can set a negative Galatea effect on us thus contributing to our beliefs on being unsuccessful, which portrays in our actions which lead to a low performance by us.
Despite this, our mental agility needs to be strong enough to turn the negative Galatea effect into a positive one, thus affecting our actions and therefore becoming a turnaround factor on the negative Pygmalion effect on us in the first place eventually turning into a positive Pygmalion effect.
Concluding Remarks
The Pygmalion and Galatea phenomena can be applied to any setting in our life. It could be at school, a sports team we are part of, a social setting, at our organization and well, even at our own home. Everyone around us has a certain set of expectations and beliefs on us. These expectations can affect us in either a positive or negative manner.
What are your thoughts on the Pygmalion and Galatea effect and how they affect our lives?