Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: A 30-Year Perspective

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Volumn 3, Issue 6, 1994, Pages 176-179

  Rosenthal, Robert ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84970687136     PISSN: 09637214     EISSN: 14678721     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10770698     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. The details are given in R. Rosenthal, From unconscious experimenter bias to teacher expectancy effects, in Teacher Expectancies, J.G. Dusek, V.C. Hall, and W.J. Meyer. Eds. (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1985).
2. R. Rosenthal and K.L. Fode, The problem of experimenter outcome-bias, in Series Research in Social Psychology, D.P. Ray, Ed. (National Institute of Social and Behavioral Science, Washington, DC, 1961). That this research was received with ambivalence is illustrated by the receipt of two letters on the same day: The first letter rejected the paper for publication in a prestigious Journal, and the second letter announced that the paper had received the Socio-Psychological Prize for 1960 from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
3. R. Rosenthal and R. Lawson, A longitudinal study of the effects of experimenter bias on the operant learning of laboratory rats, journal of Psychiatric Research, 2, 61-72 (1964).
4. R. Rosenthal and L. Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1968). A surprising finding was that the more children in the control group gained in IQ, the more unfavorably they were judged by their teachers. Apparently there were hazards to unpredicted intellectual growth. Also surprising was the strength of both the favorable and the unfavorable reactions to our research. For a summary of the criticisms and replies to them.
5. see R. Rosenthal, Pygmalion effects: Existence, magnitude, and social importance, Educational Researcher, 16, 37-41 (1987).
6. Effect sizes are expressed in terms of both d and r. The former is the difference between the experimental and control groups divided by the standard deviation of both groups combined. The latter is the point-biserial correlation between experimental versus control group status (e.g., coding 1 for experimental and 0 for control) and the outcome score (e.g., gain in performance). The effect sizes in Table 1 are based on R. Rosenthal and D.B. Rubin, Interpersonal expectancy effects: The first 345 studies, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 377-386 (1978).
7. These meta-analyses are also described in R, Rosenthal, Teacher expectancy effects: A brief update 25 years after the Pygmalion experiment, journal of Research in Education, 1, 3-12 (1991)
8. For technical details on these meta-analytic procedures, see R. Rosenthal, Meta-Analytic Procedures lor Social Research, rev. ed. (Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA, 1991).
9. More specialized meta-analyses for the effects on pupils’ IQ test performance are also available: S.W. Raudenbush, Magnitude of teacher expectancy effects on pupil IQ as a function of the credibility of expectancy induction; A synthesis of findings from 18 experiments, journal of Educational Psychology. 76, 85-97 (1984)
10. M.L. Smith, Teacher expectations, Evaluation in Education, 4, 53-55 (1980). Both Raudenbush and Smith found significant overall effects of interpersonal expectations on students' IQ. Smith reported a d of 0.16 and r of 08. Raudenbush found very strong evidence (r = 67) that substantial effects of teachers’ expectancies could be demonstrated only when the induction of the expectancy was credible (i.e., when teachers had known pupils only 2 weeks or less at the time they were given the expectation). For the seven studies in which teachers had known pupils 1 week or less, as was the case for the Pygmalion study, the mean effect-size d was 0.29, and r was 14.
11. R. Rosenthal and D.B. Rubin, A simple general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect, journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 166– 169 (1982).
12. Steering Committee of the Physicians Health Study Research Group, Preliminary report: Findings from the aspirin component of the ongoing physicians’ health study, The New England journal of Medicine, 318, 262-264(1988). This study was discontinued on the grounds that it would be unethical to continue depriving placebo-control participants of the beneficial effects of aspirin, given the effect size (r = 04, r2 = 00).
13. R. Rosenthal, Pavlov’s mice, Pfungst’s horse, and Pygmalion’s PONS: Some models for the study of interpersonal expectancy effects, in The Clever Hans Phenomenon, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 364, T.A. Sebeok and R. Rosenthal, Eds. (New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 1981); also see Rosenthal, note 1,
14. For meta-analyses making this distinction, see M.J. Harris and R. Rosenthal, Mediation of interpersonal expectancy effects: 31 meta-analyses, Psychological Bulletin, 97, 363-386 (1985)
15. M.J. Harris and R. Rosenthal, Four factors in the mediation of teacher expectancy effects, in The Social Psychology of Education, R.S. Feldman, Ed. (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1986). Although all the arrows in the model point to the right (or to the future), they may usefully be viewed as often going in both directions. Thus, improved student performance (D) can affect subsequent teacher expectations (B) and Behavior toward the student (C).
16. R. Rosenthal, The mediation of Pygmalion effects: A four factor “theory,” Papua New Guinea journal of Education, 9, 1-12 (1973)
17. R. Rosenthal, On the Social Psychology of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Further Evidence for Pygmalion Effects and Their Mediating Mechanisms (MSS Modular Publications, New York, 1974).
18. D. Eden, Pygmalion in Management (Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1990).
19. P.D. Blanck, R. Rosenthal, A.J. Hart, and F. Bernieri, The measure of the judge: An empirically-based framework for exploring trial judges’ Behavior, Iowa Law Review, 75, 653-684 (1990).
20. L.A. Learman, J. Avorn, D.E. Everitt, and R. Rosenthal, Pygmalion in the nursing home: The effects of caregiver expectations on patient outcomes, journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 38, 797– 803 (1990).
21. E. Babad, Teacher expectancies and nonverbal Behavior, in Applications of Nonverbal Behavioral Theories and Research, R.S. Feldman, Ed. (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1992).
22. N. Ambady and R. Rosenthal, Thin slices of expressive Behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin, 111, 256-274 (1992).
23. Rosenthal, R. (1976). Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research (Irvington, New York).
24. Rosenthal, R., and lacobson, L. (1992). Pygmalion in the Classroom (Irvington, New York).