Low expectations held by a supervisor depress the performance of those supervised.
Babad, Inbar and Rosenthal's 1982 study of gym teachers found that teachers holding low expectations taught and assessed those pupils differently. Expectancy effects are context-dependent, and there is no direct evidence for ranking this against the Pygmalion effect.
In practice
- A supervisor who has decided a trainee will not make it assigns them less and reviews them less carefully, and is proved right.
- A teacher told a class is a low set covers less material, and the class ends the year having covered less.
- Standing
- The negative counterpart of the Pygmalion effect; expectancy effects are context-dependent and not large enough to rank the two without direct evidence.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change