Robert Rosenthal, the author of well-known studies on “experimenter bias,” found that subjects sometimes meet the researcher’s expectations (Rosental, 1985). In one experiment, the researchers asked the subjects to rate how successful the people whose photos were presented to them were. All the subjects were given the same instructions and presented with the same photographs. Nevertheless, the expectations of the experimenters, who believed that the success of the people depicted in the photographs would be highly appreciated, were justified: their subjects rated it higher than the subjects of those experimenters who expected that the photographed would be considered losers. Even more striking and contradictory is the information that the expectations that teachers associate with their students “behave” in the same way: they also sometimes turn into prophecies that come true.

It’s no secret that teachers place greater hopes on some students than on others. You may have already noticed this yourself if you study at the same school where your older brother or sister studied, if you have been recognized as “gifted” or “unschooled,” or if you have been classified as “very capable” students or students with “average abilities.” Perhaps, thanks to the conversations that are taking place in the staff room, even those who do not know you have already formed a certain opinion about you in advance. There are other possible options: the new teacher has already thoroughly studied your school life or found out the financial situation of your family. Will the expectations of such a teacher affect the student’s academic success? It is clear that the teacher’s opinion correlates with the student’s achievements: the teacher has a good opinion of those students who study well. Basically, this is the result of the teacher’s correct perception of the abilities and achievements of their students. However, can we say that this perception is not only a consequence of students’ academic performance, but also its cause? The results of a correlation study conducted by William Krano and Phyllis Mellon with the participation of 4,300 British schoolchildren allow us to answer this question in the affirmative (Sgapo & Mellon, 1978). A teacher’s flattering opinion of a student may be not only a consequence of the latter’s academic success, but also their cause. Is there an opportunity to experimentally test this “effect of teacher expectations”? Imagine that we told a teacher, “Randomly selected students–Dana, Sally, Todd, and Manuel–are extremely gifted people.” Will the teacher treat them in a special way after that, and will they demonstrate unusually high academic performance as a result? The results of the now widely known experiment conducted by Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson fully confirm this assumption (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Randomly selected students from one of the San Francisco elementary schools, who were told (following the results of the procedure that simulated the test) that they were on the eve of a very significant “intellectual breakthrough”, subsequently, when the real intelligence test was conducted, showed better results, i.e. their IQ increased. These impressive results seem to hint that the problem of “unable children” in schools may be just a consequence of the low expectations that their teachers have for them. The results of the Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment were published in the national media shortly after its completion, as well as in many textbooks on psychology and pedagogy intended for college students. Further analysis showed that the effect of teacher expectations is not at all as significant and reliable as many experts believed based on the data from this groundbreaking study. It turned out that these results were “exceptionally difficult to reproduce” (Spitz, 1999). According to Rosenthal himself, only 39% of the 448 published studies indisputably confirm the fact that teachers’ expectations have a significant impact on student academic performance (Rosenthal. 1991). Low expectations of a teacher are not fatal for a gifted child, and high expectations will not miraculously turn an incapable student into the “pride of the class.” By nature, man is not so malleable. But it seems that a teacher’s high expectations can influence those underachieving students, for whom his support may be a breath of fresh air to help them stay afloat (Madon et al., 1997). How are the teacher’s expectations conveyed to the student? According to Rosenthal and other researchers, teachers mostly look at those students “whose potential is high,” they are more likely to smile and nod approvingly at them. Teachers can also teach their “capable students” first, set more serious goals for them, challenge them more often, and give them more time to think about their answers (Cooper, 1983; Harris & Rosenthal, 1985, 1986; Jussim, 1986). In one of their studies, Elisha Babad, Frank Bernieri, and Rosenthal videotaped teachers talking either to or about students they had high hopes for or had given up on. For the audience, both adults and children, a 10-second clip chosen at random was enough to tell from the teacher’s expression or voice how he treats the student and whether he is a good student or a bad one. (This is not a typo – 10 seconds). Although teachers tend to think they can hide their feelings, students are very sensitive to their facial expressions and movements. When I read about the study of teacher expectations, I couldn’t help but think about the impact of the expectations that students have for their teachers. When starting to study a course, you have, of course, already heard that in lectures “Professor Smith is interesting” and “Professor Jones is bored to death.” Robert Feldman and Thomas Prohaska have found that such expectations can affect both the student and the teacher (Feldman & Prohaska, 1979; Feldman & Theiss, 1982). The results of their experiments indicate that students who hoped to study with a competent teacher (the teacher himself did not know anything about this) had a more flattering opinion of their teacher than students who had more modest expectations. But that’s not all: such students have acquired more knowledge. In their second experiment, Feldman and Prokhazka videotaped teachers and then asked the subjects to evaluate their actions. Those teachers who talked to students who expressed their positive attitude to them non-verbally were called upon to be more competent. To find out whether similar effects occur in real educational institutions, a group of researchers led by David Jamison conducted an experiment in four classrooms of a secondary school in Ontario, Canada, where a teacher who had recently been transferred there taught. During individual conversations with the students, the experimenters told them that they and other students rated the new teacher very highly. Compared to the students from the control class, the participants in the experiment took their studies more seriously. At the end of the semester, they also received higher grades and described their teacher positively. One gets the impression that the students’ opinion of the teacher is no less important than the teacher’s opinion of the students.

So, the expectations of experimenters and educators, although this should be discussed with some caution, in some cases play the role of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What general rules can be deduced from this? Is it possible to say that we always get from others what we expect from them? There are situations when, expecting trouble from someone, we become overly proactive towards that person, forcing him to pay us back in kind and thereby refute our expectations. However, more often than not, researchers studying social interaction receive results that indicate the opposite: yes, to a certain extent, we get exactly what we expect (Olson et al., 1996). In laboratory games, hostility almost always generates reciprocal hostility: subjects who perceive their opponents as uncooperative find it easy to turn them into such uncooperative people (Kelley & Stahelski, 1970). Any conflict is always replete with self-fulfilling prophecy. If one participant in the conflict considers the other aggressive, touchy, and vindictive, the other will act that way in self–defense, and the vicious circle will close. My attitude towards my wife may be influenced by the mood I expect to see her in – gloomy or upbeat and friendly, and this will force her to confirm my expectations. Does this mean that partners’ idealization of each other benefits close relationships? Do positive hopes for a partner’s loyalty come true? Or do they more often turn into disappointment, because such expectations are unrealistic in principle, and in the end life proves it? The results of a study conducted by Sandra Murray and her colleagues at the University of Waterloo suggest that idealizing a partner is a good omen for a couple in love (Miggau et al., 1996, 2000). Idealization helped mitigate conflicts, promoted greater contentment, and turned those who considered themselves “frogs” into princes and princesses. Love helps us to become more like the people who love us. Love helps to turn dreams into reality. Several experiments conducted by Mark Snyder at the University of Minnesota show how erroneous beliefs about the social world, once they arise, can impose conformity on others, a phenomenon called behavioral confirmation (Snyder, 1984). In an experiment that has now become a classic, male subjects had to talk on the phone with women whose photos they had been shown in advance and whom they found attractive or not (Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid, 1977). The erroneous beliefs of men turned into a prophecy come true: men behaved in such a way that they forced women to demonstrate such behavior, which confirmed the widespread opinion among men that beautiful people are always pleasant to communicate with. Behavioral confirmation also manifests itself when we think that people are not indifferent to us. Imagine that you are one of the participants in an experiment conducted recently by Robert Ridge and Jeffrey Reber, in which 60 young men and the same number of young women took part (in print). Each man should interview one of the women and decide whether she is suitable for the position of a teacher’s assistant. Before that, the man was told that the woman he was going to interview either sympathized with him (based on his answers to the questions of the biographical questionnaire), or not. (Imagine that someone with whom you are going to talk has shown increased interest in the upcoming acquaintance with you and possible subsequent meetings, or has demonstrated complete indifference.) The result was behavioral confirmation. The applicants, whose interviewers believed that they were not indifferent to them, behaved more coquettishly, without even realizing it. According to Ridge and Reber, it is possible that this process is one of the possible causes of sexual harassment. If a man feels that a woman’s behavior confirms his assumptions about her, he can “step up” and move on to such explicit actions that a woman can no longer interpret otherwise as unacceptable and offensive. Expectations also influence children’s behavior. After seeing how much garbage was scattered in three classrooms, Richard Miller and his colleagues asked the teacher of one of the classes and his assistants to remind the children as often as possible that cleanliness and order should be observed (Miller et al., 1975). Thanks to these reminders, the amount of trash that ended up in special bins increased from 15% to 45%, but the effect was only temporary. The second of the three classes, which also sent no more than 15% of the garbage to the basket, was systematically praised for its neatness. After eight days of regular praise, and even two weeks after it stopped, the students of this class continued to meet the expectations of adults: they threw more than 80% of the garbage into the baskets. Don’t get tired of telling your children that they are hardworking and kind, not lazy and stubborn, and it’s possible that they will be just that. These experiences help us understand why social beliefs such as gender stereotypes, stereotypical representations of people with disabilities or representatives of a particular race can become self-fulfilling beliefs. Others treat us the same way we and other people treat them. Like all other social phenomena, the tendency for the behavior of others to confirm our expectations has its limits. Expectations often predict behavior simply because they are fair (Jussim, 1993). In addition, people who have been warned in advance about the expectations placed on them may seek to exceed expectations (Hilton & Darley, 1985; Swann, 1978). If Chuck knows that, in Jane’s opinion, he has “the wind in his head,” he may want to do everything to refute this impression. If Jane knows that Chuck doesn’t expect her to be friendly, she might try to prove the opposite to him. According to William Swann and Robin Ely, there is another condition under which we are most likely to fail to meet the expectations associated with us by others: when their expectations conflict with our clear Self-concept (Swann & Ely, 1984). So, the researchers report: when an “avid party girl” was interviewed by a man who expected to see an introvert in front of him, it was not the interviewee’s behavior that changed, but the interviewer’s idea of her. On the contrary, insecure interviewees most often meet the expectations of the interviewers. Our beliefs about ourselves can also be self-fulfilling. The fact that people often realize the predictions they have made about their own behavior has been proven by Steven Sherman in several experiments (Sherman, 1980). When a group of residents of Bloomington, Indiana, received a phone call asking if they would like to help the American Cancer Society and work for three hours free of charge, only 4% of the respondents agreed. When they called other people (this second group was similar to the first) and asked them to predict their reaction in case they were approached with such a request, almost half expressed willingness to help. And they really helped when the Society needed their help. If we have a certain plan for our actions in certain circumstances, the probability that we will act in accordance with it is very high.

Sometimes our beliefs take on a life of their own. As a rule, our ideas about others are based on real facts. However, the study of phenomena such as experimenter bias and teacher expectations shows that the mistaken belief that some people have outstanding abilities (or are completely devoid of them) can lead to teachers and experimenters singling out such people from the general mass, and in the future they are the ones who achieve the best (or bad) results. confirming an opinion that is inherently false. Similarly, in everyday life, people often exhibit exactly the behavior we expect from them, i.e. we receive behavioral confirmation of what we expect. Source: Myers D. “Social Psychology” Photo: smartia.ru