Glog text
GURU : DR. ROBERT ROSENTHAL
CLICK ON ARROW TO THE RIGHT TO LEARN ABOUT PYGMALION EFFECT IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND AS INTERPRETED BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Theory of Interpersonal Expectancy
Click on the paperclip below for access to file attachments:
1) Dr. Rosenthal's 30 year perspective on Interpersonal expectancy.
Scott Gravitt 9962
Clever Hans
Even more clever Mr. Ed
Everyone my age knows that Mr. Ed could do everything Hans did + speak and offer psychological advise to Wilbur.
Biography Link
Surprisingly, early experiments with interpersonal expectancy didn’t involve interpersonal relationships at all but rather studied the relationship between a perceived super intelligent horse named “Clever Hans” and his owner, a man named Mr. von Osten. Clever Hans was famous for being able to accurately solve math equations, read, and spell by tapping out answers with his hoof. A committee of experts concluded that Clever Hans was in fact genuinely capable of performing these tasks without intervention from Mr. von Osten. Later, a psychologist named O. Pfungst performed a series of experiments and learned that Clever Hans was receiving subtle and unintentional cues from his handler. Specifically, as the hoof count approached the correct response, Mr. von Osten would glance upward in anticipation of the hoof taps ending as the correct number was obtained. This unintentional interaction was later labeled as the experimenter expectancy effect. Simply stated, the experimenter expectancy effect occurs when an experimenter holds a bias opinion about the likely performance of a particular subject. The subject in turn is likely to perform to the expectations of the experimenter.
Famed social psychologist Dr. Robert Rosenthal is considered to be the leading authority on the theory of interpersonal expectancy and has demonstrated its impact in a number of lab and classroom experiments. Initial lab experiments involved a rat’s ability to navigate through a maze. Some student researchers were told their rats were specifically bred for high intelligence, and thus, were able to navigate and learn mazes more quickly than ordinary rats. These rats were labeled as “maze bright.” Other student researchers were told their rats learned slowly and were catagorized as “maze dull.” In reality, there was no difference between the rats being tested. The students then trained their rats on a number of tasks and measured their performance. The “maze bright” rats performed significantly better than the “maze dull” rats.
These early experiments led Dr. Rosenthal to cooperate with Oak School administrator Lenore Jacobson to test the theory of expectancy with students in grades 1 through 6. At the beginning of the school year, all students were given an I.Q. test named the Tests of General Ability, a.k.a., TOGA Test. The test was chosen for two reasons: 1) teachers would probably not be familiar with the test; 2) the test was non-verbal and did not primarily depend on school learned reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. Meanwhile, teachers were told the students were being given the “Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.” The teachers were told the Harvard test was an indicator for a student’s ability to “bloom.” High scoring students were labeled as entering a phase of increased ability to learn in the next year. Eighteen teachers (16 female, 2 male) were subsequently given a list of students in their class who had scored in the top 20 percent on the Harvard test. In reality, the students were randomly assigned. At the end of the school year all the children were given the TOGA test to measure gains in I.Q. scores and the differences between groups was examined. For the entire school, the children identified as ready to bloom increased their average I.Q. score 12.2 points while the control group increased an average of 8.2 points. The effect was significantly greater in the early grades and almost non-existent for older children. Findings of this study showed that early formal experiments with lab rats were applicable in less formal, real world situations. Rosenthal labeled the expectancy effect as it occurs in a settings outside the lab, “the Pygmalion effect” (click on YouTube link for more information about Pygmalion in Greek Mythology).
Dr. Rosenthal has identified four factors that teachers’ exhibit towards those with whom they think are gifted: 1) Climate - teachers create more of a warm and friendly learning climate for students they perceive as being gifted. 2) Input - teachers expose students who are perceived as gifted to more material in comparison to non-gifted students. 3) Response opportunity - teachers call on students they perceive as gifted learners more frequently. 4) Feedback - teachers give students they perceive as gifted more praise for correct responses and mitigate incorrect responses by offering differentiated and guided feedback.
Theory of Interpersonal Expectancy
Three Potential Research Questions
1)Interpersonal expectancy with discipline referrals: If teachers were unable to access the prior discipline histories of high risk students at the beginning of the school year, would they decrease the number of discipline referrals based on their expectation of better behavior?
2)To what extent do positive character traits in teachers like sense of humor, friendliness, and ability to empathize, etc. impact a student’s desire to perform? Which teacher character traits do students feel are most important in motivating them to excel?
3)Is there a significant difference in student performance between: a) teachers that have high academic expectations but demonstrate few positive character traits, b) teachers that have high expectations and also exhibit many positive character traits?
Citations
Chaiken, A., Sigleer, E., & Derlenga, V. (1974). Non-verbal mediators of teacher expectancy effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 144-149.
Deroma, V., Hansen, D., Tishelman, A., & Damico, P. (1997). Influence of information related to child physical abuse on professional ratings of adjustment and prognosis. Child Abuse and Neglect, 21(3), 295-308.
Fried, C. (1996). Bad rap for rap: Bias in reactions to music lyrics. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(23), 2135-2146.
Pfungst, O. (1911). Clever Hans (the horse of Mr. von Osten): A contribution to experimental, animal, and human psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Rosenthal, R., and Jacobson, L. (1992). Pygmalion in the Classroom (Irvington, New York).
Rosentahal, R. (1994) Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: A 30 year perspective. Current directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 3, No.6, (176-179).
Given what we know about Interpersonal Expectancy, why are we still grouping kids by ability level? See video for points to ponder.
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