RESTRAINING GOLEM AND HARNESSING PYGMALION IN THE CLASSROOM: A LABORATORY STUDY OF MANAGERIAL EXPECTATIONS AND TASK COMPLEXITY.

Abstract

In seeking to enhance teaching effectiveness, educators and trainers are demonstrating a growing interest in understanding positive expectations and the resulting Pygmalion effect. Unfortunately, the true impact of the Golem effect--Pygmalion in reverse--has gone unproven and the potential negative effects are not wholly understood. Furthermore, the literature largely fails to address the extent to which Pygmalion-related effects may differ based on task complexity. This study examines the effect of an instructor's verbalized expectations--both negative and positive--on the performance of 351 business-school undergraduate students. Analyses using pre- and post-treatment data collected during field experiments indicated, most notably, that negative expectations of subordinates' performance on cognitively based tasks tend to degrade that performance. The effects on non-cognitively based tasks were, however, positive. Positive expectations had the opposite effect. Implications for management-education research and related applications are discussed.