The Pygmalion effect on education

The Pygmalion effect applied to the educational environment refers to how the teacher's expectations of the student can condition his behavior towards him and affect his academic evolution.

In the classroom there was what is known in psychology as a self-fulfilling prophecy, that is, the teacher's beliefs about the abilities of his students originate behaviors that the teacher himself expected. Not only can the teacher's positive or negative expectations affect the student's behavior, but they can also affect his or her intellectual level.

There are four determining factors that explain how the teacher's expectations can be transmitted to students who are expected more:

1) A closer emotional climate is generated. This is mainly due to the use of an unconscious nonverbal language that allows emotions to be transmitted through gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, looks, smiles, ... This nonverbal communication constitutes an essential complement to oral verbal language and allows student capturing and reacting to the messages transmitted by the teacher.

2) More subject is taught. The expectations created in the student's ability make the teacher try harder to explain new academic content and be more demanding with the student than he expects more. This does not happen with students who the teacher thinks are less intelligent.

3) They are asked more. The teacher relies more on the responses of these students, so they are asked more and with greater difficulty. It helps them more in the answers by suggesting alternatives, interrupts them less, gives them more opportunities for response and more time to respond.

4) They are praised more. The more you believe in the child, the more you praise him so he can get the best result. If the teacher does not believe in the student's ability, he can accept an incorrect or incomplete answer.