The Pygmalion Effect

Independent variable

The teacher’s expectation on the children was the independent variable. With a high hope on a specific student, the teachers had a tendency of doing things that were favorable to the student. As a result, influencing their performance.

Dependent variable

The performance of the students whose names were submitted to their teacher and said that they would perform better in the academic year ahead was the dependent variable. The performance changed with the change in expectation from the teachers.

The control group

The control group of the study was the children who were not labeled at all. The study marked several children as the ones that would perform better. Therefore, the rest of the group that was not selected became the control group of the study.

The treatment and the treatment group

The treatment group, in this case, were the students expected to perform better and gain intellectually in the academic year ahead. The treatment is the expectancy effect. At the beginning of the experiment, the teachers were given several names of students in their class that were expected to perform better. However, they were not told that the names were picked randomly. As a result, the teachers raised their expectations on the children and taught differently which favored the labeled students.

An example of a self-fulfilling prophecy

Self-fulfilling prophecies are everywhere even in the business world. One example of the self-filling prophecy is the macroeconomic one that happened in the 1980s in California. The media at that time started reporting that the gas reserves in the state were running low and would soon be unable to sustain the population. Although the reserves were starting to run low, they could still meet the demand of the people (Hawks).

The media’s report, however, drove the people to take some actions that would make sure that the prophecy would be fulfilled even without them knowing. First, anyone who used gasoline for either motor vehicle or motorcycle rushed to the nearest gas station filling their car and any container that could hold gasoline for storage. As a result, the prophecy came to fruition causing there to be a shortage of gas. The artificially inflated demand for gas by the media influenced people’s behavior which in return led to acts that would see the prophecy fulfilled. Had the press put it right that the reserves were low but would be able to sustain the population, the people would most likely not have reacted the way they did. Instead, things would have continued the same way until the supply was back to normal (Hawks).