Pygmalion and Golem's Influence on Performance
How accurate are these myths and are they applicable everywhere?
There’s a biological phenomena which you can observe in the “love and hate rice experiment”, used to portray how positive and negative language affects outcomes. The person conducting the study will speak affirmations to one labeled jar of cooked white rice (the “love” jar) and demeaning phrases to another (the “hate” jar). After a period of time, the experimenter will observe that the “hate” jar begins to decay while surprisingly, the “love” jar sustains its original white state. It’s fundamentally a demonstration of the Pygmalion vs. Golem Effect.
But there’s a point to be made that the opposite leads to better outcomes. There’s evidence that continuous affirmation can hinder performance and increased negativity can actually push for greater success.
The lore of Pygmalion and Golem
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor scorned by the continual disappointment women had left him. He decided to create a sculpture of his idea of the perfect woman he named Galatea. Pygmalion adorned it with objects and gave it devoted attention, eventually falling in love with his creation. One day, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, turned the statue into a real woman and allowed the two to live happily ever after.
Among many of its themes, the myth has become the foundation for the psychological phenomenon dictating that positive reinforcement allows a person to reach their highest potential. It was mainly studied in educational psychology by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968, who coined the Pygmalion Effect. Its counterpart, the Golem Effect, states that placing lower expectations on someone will effectively make them worse performers.1 Both are self-fulfilling prophecies.
In Jewish folklore, golems were clay beings that protected their creators when brought to life. Infamously, Rabbi Leow used a golem to protect the Jewish community in Prague from persecution. However, the golem grew too powerful and became a force of chaos and destruction.
Affirmation leads to successful outcomes
Healthy support systems are quintessential for high achievement. The studies conducted by Rosenthal laid the foundation for modern-day instruction in the classroom. Today in the workplace, home, school, and public policy, there are inherent demonstrations of the Pygmalion/Golem Effect in practice.
It’s not controversial to say that having someone in your corner motivates you to achieve peak performance. Beyond Rosenthal’s scientific proof points, I’m positive each of us can pinpoint an anecdote of someone’s gratitude toward a mentor/teacher/peer that allowed them to realize their full potential. It’s especially prevalent in speeches during awards show season, and a commonality between top athletes who rely on the support of coaches and community to perform.
Implementations of the Pygmalion Effect can help lead to a higher-functioning and more equitable society. Leaders and policy-makers have tried structuring group environments so that attention is given to the individual in hopes of positively influencing the entire group’s outcome. This is a large initiative in lower education, arguably the most formative years for a person’s success. In the past, classrooms were often divided based on student performance to match abilities with peers and help teachers focus content based on group needs. This was found to reinforce self-fulfilling prophecies that polarized the groups further in their student grades. Now, a “mixed-ability” classroom strategy is seen to be most beneficial for group success, and adopted in other applications like businesses and social policies.2
The positive externalities of the Pygmalion Effect can lead to a higher-functioning and more equitable society. Individuals are found to display growth mindsets with positive affirmation, leading to higher confidence and productivity gains. In culture, it provides stronger relationships between groups that become environments to foster collaboration and increase the rate of innovation. So really, it’s a no-brainer. We should explore ways to incorporate positive reinforcement wherever possible, right?
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Let’s provide the concession.
“Pressure makes diamonds”. The belief is that experiencing hardships will lead to greater success, and often the signs of someone with true strength and resilience. Again, we denote top performers by their anecdotes of rising to the top despite challenges and negativity from critics. Entrepreneurs encounter this, with continual doubt and scrutiny by peers in the vein of “that will never work”. Stories of the world’s most elite athletes recount similar experiences, being the first of their kind to reach the level of accolades even after the immense negativity experienced on their journey to the top.
Jackie Robinson’s story is a direct rejection of the Pygmalion Effect. His father left his family as a baby, and after moving to a predominantly white neighborhood with his mother and four siblings, faced radical racial discrimination. Coaches, referees, and teammates undermined his abilities during his formative years. Despite living in poverty, having an absentee father, and hostile racial treatment, Robinson became one of the most famous athletes in history. He lettered in 4 sports during his time at UCLA and went on to break the color barrier in baseball. By the end of his career, he won the World Series, became a decorated MVP, and was a six-time MLB All Star. Robinson’s perseverance allowed him to overcome the obstacles hindering his potential.
Proving the haters wrong pushes for greater success. Without that drive, we can fall into stagnation and (dare I say) laziness. On the dark side of affirmation, we have negative effects of things like gentle parenting.3 This style of parenting is controversial, receiving divided attention among the public. The criticism is that it is too focused on the child being the center of attention, causing entitlement, disregard for authority, and lack of drive. Teachers report that students have become more resistant to instruction and over-reliant on their instructors, suffering academically if they do not receive the same attention they do at home. Is this the tipping point of positive reinforcement’s contradiction of the Pygmalion Effect?
The correct methodology to apply in society
There isn’t one prescription that works for everyone to succeed. Although Pygmalion effects can be motivations for success, there’s solid evidence that criticism can influence higher performance.
A possibly better solution is to incorporate the Galatea Effect everywhere possible. Not as popular as Pygmalion’s legacy, there is another lesson to take away from the Greek myth. From the statue’s perspective, self-confidence leads to successful outcomes. Without inserting some level of confidence, I don’t think anyone could reach their full potential.
Like many things, it’s all about balance. It’s very rare to find a top performer that has only experienced negative or positive affirmation. Overcoming negative feedback is part of the process of growth and development! For Jackie Robinson, he had a strong support system in his mother and older brother to rely on through the challenges he faced in his career. For Adrien Brody, who had many thanks to give in his Oscar’s acceptance speech, he had to wait 20 years of losing awards to get a chance to break the longest speech record.
Rosenthal also coined this phrase alongside Elisha Babad and Jacinto Inbar, studying the effects of negative teacher expectations which led to poor student performance.
The Stuff You Should Know podcast has a great episode that dives deeper into this and an overall explanation of the Pygmalion Effect.
Gentle parenting is a style of raising kids popularized in recent years. The TL;DR is that it entails emphasizing positive reinforcement rather than punishment in order to build stronger parent-child relationships and strong self-worth for the kid.