Pygmalion effect in children: the error of self-fulfilling prophecy

The Pygmalion effect is the phenomenon by which the expectations and beliefs of adults towards their children tend to be confirmed over time.

The Pygmalion Effect in children

It receives that name in reference to Pygmalion, a former king of Cyprus, who fell in love with a female statue that he himself had created and implored Aphrodite to bring the statue to life. Finally Aphrodite acceded to Pygmalion's claims, materializing your wish. Pygmalion married Galatea, who was the name of the woman born from that original statue, and had a daughter named Pafo.

Metaphorically, the Pygmalion Effect describes how parents, teachers and people with emotional ties can transfer or influence the child's lifestyle, mutating their abilities, tastes and behaviors. These kinds of expectations that are placed on the child are transmitted to him through verbal and non-verbal language, and they express both what we long for and what we reject.

Language can convey insecurity to the child

A good deal of the messages we transmit are surreptitious, and

operate both in the gestural field and in the connotation of what we express. Therefore, they differ from the verbal message that is transmitted, and the child is able to capture that background feeling beyond the strictly verbal message. Without going any further, many messages that are sent to children can be of the type: "Behave like a man", "Be smarter", "You can not do this".

However, what is conveyed is the longing or fear expressed in the imperative form of language; the child learns what his role or behavior should be (and most important: how it should not be). Thus, the true message that the boy captures is: "You are not man enough, prove it", "You are stupid", "You are going to fail". Therefore, it is crucial to try to describe more precisely what we feel, and to try to make sure of your own feelings before expressing them.

In short, families often deposit a series of unconscious beliefs (good or bad, constructive or limiting) regarding the future of each of its offspring. The tangible product of this aggregate of beliefs and longings is what is known as the Pygmalion Effect.

Investigations on the Pygmalion Effect

One of the studies on which the Pygmalion Effect theory is based was carried out in the United States. We worked with two groups of students, one of which was made up of students with superior intelligence and good academic grades, while the other was made up of students with grades below the average. The teacher during the experimentation did not know the true origin of the students or the criteria with which the students had been separated into two groups.

Instead, the teacher was given inverted information about the students' intellectual and academic development.

Teachers were informed that the first group (which was made up of hardworking students) consisted of the worst students in the state. As for the second group (the one made up of mediocre students), the teachers were told that was made up of students with a higher intellectual level, and who obtained excellent ratings.

After a while teaching, it was reported that the group of intellectually bright boys suffered a noticeable drop in gradesWhile those who had a poor academic level significantly increased the quality of their grades. Therefore, the conclusion is clear: the teacher's belief influenced their interaction and student achievement of academic goals. Thus, the belief about the ability of the students led to a kind of “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

Sometimes adults are aware of these expectations and desires placed in children, for example they may be aware that they have had a child so as not to feeling lonely in old age, to be able to solidify marital ties, to give life meaning, to replace someone who died, to inherit a business, etc. Whether or not they are more aware of these reasons, the truth is that they develop a whole set of strategies aimed at maximizing the possibilities that Those wishes are fulfilled, from the name that is given to the baby, to the most unusual fantasies about his abilities, his physique or his future vocation.

Belief as a protective element

Beliefs are so powerful that they can reverse the future of a person, who for example has a tendency towards a complicated and surly character, just due to the influence of the reiteration of unconscious messages that he has been hearing and internalizing during his childhood, and that marks the path on how his story should end or, in this case, a personality trait in concrete. In this way, personalities and biographies have been forged that, far from essentialist mechanism, They have been consolidating their way of being and their goals hand in hand with some beliefs poured into them.

In this sense, it is important to point out that this influence of the family environment is capable of protecting the infant in vulnerable social contexts, since From this point of view, trust manages to protect the child in a network of optimism about their abilities and her future, acting as a vaccine for the virus of the misery.

These good intentions born of love certainly have the ability to build realities, as reflected in the unforgettable film. "Life is Beautiful", from Roberto Benigni. In the film we learned how is it possible to found an alternate reality, when the father modulated the vision of events in his son, transforming the terrible experience of living the war and the concentration camps of the III Reich into an event full of challenges, challenges and games, with characters who played the role of villains, making a decisive contribution to saving carnal life, but above all their desire to live and to face barbarism with integrity.

How to avoid the harmful effects associated with the Pygmalion Effect

• Be treated through some process of self-exploration (psychotherapy or development techniques) that allows access to deep expectations, perhaps unconscious, about your child (ren), as well as your perception of reality and the future.

• Release thoughts focused on expectations, using an effective method or discipline.

• Reformulate some ways you look at your children and change the way you express yourself with each of them, physical proximity, recognize genuine qualities and abilities, eliminating fanciful images about what we would want them to be or to do. In short, try to respect that the child chooses her dreams and aspirations as freely as possible.

• Accompany the child in his natural evolutionary process through expressive systems, such as art or music, that can make visible reformulations, perceptual modifications, thus developing the habit of self-observation.

• Methods based on family therapy can be effective when it comes to analyzing, predicting and intervening in the role set by the family before the birth of a child, the limiting conditions and therefore indicate the path where the shoot. Thanks to this methodology, we can assume the changes and modify the destiny of the child.

• As parents, we must learn strategies for our child to grow up with healthy self-esteem.