Golem effect: what it is and how it limits us through expectations

Do you know the Golem effect? Do you know what relationship it has with the Pygmalion effect or with the self-fulfilling prophecy? And with the stereotypes? How has this effect been studied?

If you want to find out the answer to these questions, and above all, if you are passionate about social psychology but also educational psychology... feel free to read the article until the end!

• Related article: "The Pygmalion Effect: how children end up being their parents' hopes and fears"

Golem effect: what is it?

The Golem effect, also called the Negative Pygmalion effect, consists of a phenomenon that can be classified within social psychology. This psychological phenomenon consists of the following: The fact of placing very low expectations on someone (or on oneself), leads to a worse performance of the person.

Why is this happening? How is it explained? We will see it throughout the article and through a very clear example.

Before, however, to say that the Golem effect has been studied not only from the point of view of social psychology, but also from educational and organizational psychology. A little later we will talk about the first investigations that had the Golem effect as an object of study, by Leonore Jacobson and Robert Rosenthal.

So, in other words, what happens in the Golem effect is that a person can condition another and make him believe that he is not capable of doing something, thus lowering his self-esteem. This effect, however, often happens unconsciously. However, the consequences for the person who has been "prejudged" can be very negative, because they would be limiting their potential.

To understand this phenomenon a little better, let's think about an example in the educational field.

Example

If a teacher emphasizes that a student is unable to carry out a series of tasks, or to pass his subject, it is very likely that this student will stagnate and this "prophecy" will really come true negative".

Thus, in the Golem effect, the expectations of teachers towards their students are based on little information and arise automatically; These expectations often indirectly and unconsciously cause them to act in a coherent way with said negative result; that is, his behavior may be partly contributing to the negative result of his student.

This does not mean that teachers are responsible for school failure. of some of his students, far from it, but that their behavior could influence this result because they already go with the prior expectation that they will fail.

This is what the Golem effect consists of, which can be extrapolated to other fields and situations beyond the academic field, for For example, when we have very low expectations of someone and they are met (at work, in personal relationships, etc.). etc.).

• Related article: "The 8 most important psychological effects"

Its relationship with the Pygmalion effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy

The Golem effect has a lot to do with two other phenomena of social psychology: the self-fulfilling prophecy and the Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect is just the opposite. to the Golem effect, and it is that the fact of placing high expectations on someone (specifically, on their performance), positively influences their performance, so that it improves. It is for this reason that the Golem effect is also called the Negative Pygmalion effect, because it consists of the opposite effect.

In this way, both in the Pygmalion effect and in the Golem effect, it is argued that our beliefs in relation to others influence their performance. All of this also has a lot to do with expectations, and from here we can link both phenomena directly to the self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon.

The self-fulfilling prophecy, for its part, refers to the fact that predicting or believing in something of a psychological nature makes it easier for it to come true, because we end up developing behaviors that facilitate it. That is, the fact of believing it ends up being the cause of its occurrence.

What does the research say?

As we have already seen through an example in the educational field, the Golem effect occurs in various areas of life, but especially in the academic field.

But, who started to study the Golem effect, together with the Pygmalion effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy? It was Leonore Jacobson, director of a school in San Francisco (California), and Robert Rosenthal, a psychologist, who began a series of investigations into these psychological phenomena.

Through their studies, Jacobson and Rosenthal observed that, Unconsciously, many teachers classified their students; this fact influenced their performance, since, also unconsciously, teachers facilitated or made it difficult to implement means and behaviors so that their initial "predictions" would come to an end fulfilling.

Reflections about this phenomenon

As a result of analyzing the Golem effect, the following question may arise: can this effect be stopped? Although it is difficult, surely yes. As? through the task of detect these prior biases in people (for example in teachers) in relation to the capacities or the possible performance of other people, or of the students, in the case of teachers.

In other words, the ideal would be for teachers to believe in all their students and to promote and stimulate their performance to the same extent (although there will always be students who need more attention).

So we find ourselves with a very complex issue, because in the end we all have expectations, we all have prejudices, we all make predictions based on certain parameters... and our behavior, whether we like it or not, often goes according to these predictions, as if unconsciously we would like to "be right" (although precisely this behavior is so irrational).

• You may be interested in: "Self-fulfilling prophecies, or how to make yourself a failure"

Relationship with stereotypes

At this point, and after talking about the Golem effect, its characteristics and differences with the self-fulfilling prophecy and with the Pygmalion Effect... it may be that a very important concept in social psychology has come to mind: the phenomenon of stereotypes.

Stereotypes are those pre-established ideas or beliefs that we have in relation to a group or to certain types of people, for example. These are ideas that have been transmitted to us by society, school, family... and that we inherit in our mental imagination.

These ideas are usually erroneous beliefs, because they try to define a group of people according to traits "typically associated" with them, without any foundation. An example of a stereotype would be to think that "all Italians are Latin lovers."

What relationship does the Goleman effect have with stereotypes? Basically, in a certain way stereotypes may be playing a causal role in this effect (although not always), since based on them we create ideas in our heads in relation to what the performance of a certain person will be like.

On the other hand, as with stereotypes, when the Goleman effect occurs it is because we are creating an idea, or making a prediction, based on little information and almost automatic.

Bibliographic references:

• Babad, E. Y., Inbar, J., & Rosenthal, R. (1982). Pygmalion, Galatea, and the Golem: Investigations of biased and unbiased teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 459–474.
• Castillo, R. (2014). The Pygmalion effect. To what extent does the vision that others have of us determine our future? Final Degree Project, Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences. Pontifical University.
• Morales, J.F. (2007). Social psychology. Publisher: S.A. McGraw-Hill / Interamericana of Spain.
• Rosenthal, R. & Jacobson, L.F. (1968). Teacher Expectations for the Disadvantaged. Scientific American, 218(4): 19-23.