The Power of Leader Expectations: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Organizations Robert P. Vecchio All of us hold expectations, or future-oriented beliefs, for the behavior of others.l We also communicate our expectations to one another via verbal and nonverbal channels. Not uncommonly, we convey cues that reveal our approval or disapproval of another's conduct. Because we generally convey these expectations without any deliberate or conscious intent, the interpersonal dynamics can be relatively subtle in nature (in comparison to more direct attempts to change the behavior of others via incentives or threats). Two of the more recognizable examples of how the power of expectations operates can be witnessed in the reactions of children to the expectations of parents and teachers. Within some families and classrooms, certain children are labeled as the "little devils" or the "stars," who then respond in accordance with these labels. By and large, individuals tend to respond to the expectations of others in a manner that supports the initial beliefs of the person who is transmitting the various cues. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University, in a well-known investigation of the power of expectations, examined the role of elementary school teachers’ prior beliefs for the performance of their students.2 Specifically, Rosenthal gave each pupil an academic aptitude test at the start of the school term, and then gave false feedback to the teachers, labeling 20 percent of the students in each class as likely to have a "great leap forward" in the coming year. In reality, the "bright" students had been selected at random for the honorific title. At the close of the school year, a retesting revealed, however, that the "star" students had indeed excelled, as indicated by significant gains in IQ scores compared to their classmates. Because the only independent (or manipulated) variable in the study was the expectation held by each teacher for each individual student, one is inclined to conclude that the students' test performance was a function of how the teachers varied the quality of their relations with the students (by subtly encouraging and being more positive toward the "stars," and by being less encouraging to all others). The students likely sensed these cues and responded by fulfilling the expectation (or prophecy of the teacher. This social dynamic can be termed a self-fulfilling prophecy (or SFP). An Ancient Tale In a published summary of this classroom research, Rosenthal entitled his work Pygmalion in the Classroom. The Greek mythological character of Pygmalion is an apt one for describing this social process. According to the ancient author Ovid (in the tenth book of Metamorphoses), a sculptor by the name of Pygmalion, who was a prince of Cyprus, carved an ivory statue of the ideal woman. He then fell in love with his creation, and was rescued from his frustrated love by the intervention of Venus, the goddess love, who infused life into the statue. The nowanimated statue was named Galatea, and the couple enjoyed a "happy ever after" life. Today, we use the term "Pygmalion effect" to refer to a person whose strong wishes or preferences are ultimately fulfilled. In a sense, the teachers in Rosenthal's room study acted as Pygmalions who were able to have their personal prophecies fulfilled. It is easy to see the relevance of the SFP dynamic for organizational life. Employees (in analogous fashion to students) desire approval from their superiors. And supervisors commonly hold initial beliefs for their unit members, either positive or negative. To some extent, these supervisors acting in the role of Pygmalion) send cues, or expectations, concerning whether they believe a given employee will succeed or fail. In response to these cues, employees then typically conform to the transmitted prophecy. Furthermore, the "star" employee has a difficult time being seen as doing anything wrong and is generally given the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation, while the employee for whom negative or low expectations are held can seldom seem to do anything right. For those employees who anticipate a harsh evaluation from their superior, the mental and emotional distraction of possible failure can also contribute to a poor performance outcome. In another well-publicized study of the SFP dynamic, King studied a group of hard-core unemployed men who had enrolled in an adult training program devoted to learning the fundamentals of welding.3 At the outset the men were given a test of mechanical aptitude. Then, the classroom supervisors were given false feedback on each student's test performance. As in the Rosenthal study, a small group of individuals were randomly selected for the label of "high-aptitude" students. In truth, these students were comparable to their classroom colleagues. At the completion of the training program, all of the men were given a test of welding knowledge. The results revealed that the allegedly "high-aptitude" men did actually learn more about welding in the course than did their classmates. Also, the "high-aptitude" individuals had better attendance (i.e., missed fewer classes) and completed most of the class exercises ahead of the others. When a confidential vote was later taken to determine which class members were "most preferred to be assigned with on a job site" (in essence, a type of popularity contest), it was the "high-aptitude" individuals who were singled out most often. In a more rigorous research study of SFP, Eden and Shani found that soldiers in the Israeli army who were randomly labeled as having "high command potential" had superior performance evaluations during their boot camp training experience (relative to other trainees who were in the same cohort).4 Moreover, the researchers found that the magnitudes of the SFP effects were quite substantial. For example, the variance in later military career performance that could be attributed to the labeling process was nearly 75 percent, and roughly two-thirds of the variability in their attitudes (e.g., satisfaction with life in the military) could be attributed to an SFP phenomenon. And on the ultimate measure of the impact of the SFP phenomenon for these soldiers, the so-called "high-command potential" soldiers reenlisted in the military for another tour of duty at a much higher rate than their peers. There are numerous other examples of SFPs in everyday life. Consider the occasion of a bank run, where a bank's depositors descend on a bank based on a rumor of insolvency and thereby fulfill their own expectation by making the bank insolvent. In essence, collective behavior by the depositors turns the rumor into reality. It can also be argued that a component of economic inflation is driven by an SFP dynamic. For example, collective, bargaining agents who represent unions may expect that inflation will be around 3 percent in the next year or so. With this in mind, these union reps will feel the necessity to demand a minimum increase of 3 percent from their employer. The employer, in turn, will feel the necessity to set prices 3 percent higher for the coming time period, and so a "wage-price spiral" is driven. In short, the expectation that everything will go up a certain percentage in the coming time frame is partially guaranteed by collective action based on the starting assumption. final set of intriguing illustrations of SFPs is given by research coned by Rosenthal and his associates, wherein they told college students specific laboratory rats had been previously trained to run in a maze and had displayed varying aptitude for maze-running (i.e., each rat was either maze-bright or maze-dull).5 In fact, the rats were labeled at random, and were even genetically similar in that the rats were litter mates. When college student later ran his or her allegedly bright or dull rat in a maze, the performance of the "bright" rats (as measured by blind observers' scoring of films of the rats' behaviors) exceeded that of the "dull" rats (e.g., 29 percent of the "dull" rats refused to leave the maze's starting point, versus 11 percent of the "bright" rats). This finding suggests three points: (1) SFPs are important potential nuisance variables for researchers (i.e., observed behavioral results obtained by researchers may partly reflect the researchers' own expectations if safeguards are not taken, as may also be true for supervisors in the workplace); (2) we probably find it more comfortable to interact with others who meet our expectations, whether high or low; and 3) it is apparently possible to convey subtle cues across animal species. A good illustration of this third point is found in instances when we encounter a strange dog for the very first time. Typically, the dog takes its cues on how to behave from our own behavior (or expectation). That is to say, dog is often picking up our cues that we expect the dog to be aggressive (as evidenced by our nervousness or backing away) or that we expect the dog to be friendly (by our relaxed posture and gentle, reassuring tone of voice). In essence, whether the strange dog behaves in a vicious or friendly manner is not so much a function of the dog's personality as our expectation for the dog's behavior in that setting. The Positive Management Perhaps more often than we might care to acknowledge, we fall victim to an SFP, either as a cue sender or as a cue recipient (i.e., as a perpetrator or a benefactor, respectively). Instead of allowing SFPs to bandy us about, it is far wiser to try to take control of the SFP process and use it to achieve mutually beneficial, positive ends. Because cue sending is an inevitable facet of social life, we need to be conscious of the cues that we send, in order to encourage others to attain maximal performance. Supervisors, therefore, must be aware of how their degree of eye contact, tone of voice, smiling, nodding, physical proximity, relative detail in the nature of formal feedback that is provided, and the phrasing of sentences can convey expectations, and take active control of these elements of their self-presentation. Also, the active management of SPFs can foster motivation by displaying enthusiasm for a group’s goals. This enthusiasm can then operate in a contagious fashion to enhance overall unit performance. SFPs probably play an important role in the dynamics that surround performance appraisal systems. Typically, appraisal systems are the settings for surfacing expectations. Unfortunately, appraisal systems are often highly subjective, and the opportunity for personal bias to enter the picture can be quite real. When negative or positive bias enters the process, then a cycle of events can be initiated that has a relatively foreordained outcome (i.e., success or failure). In short, performance appraisal systems do not merely summarize past performance, they are also responsible for determining future performance. Many times, managers and employees will suggest that a better approach to performance appraisal is to rely on more objective measures of performance. Sales figures, units of output per day, customer complaints, etc., might be offered as potentially less biased indices of performance. However, even these measures are still subject to the SFP dynamic in that the perception of allegedly simple objective indices, such as those noted above, can be influenced by strong prior expectations. An intriguing study that demonstrates the power of expectations for tainting perception can be found in the field of extrasensory perception (ESP) research.6 Specifically, researchers surveyed a class of college students on their beliefs of ESP and related phenomena (e.g., clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, etc.). The survey responses showed that the students could be assigned to one of two groups: “believers” or “skeptics” (or as they are known to ESP researchers, “sheep” and “goats”). Both groups of students were then asked to participate in an alleged research project where a well-known psychic would try to influence a set of gambling dice to turn up a large number of 6s. In reality, the dice spilling was handled by a random-event generating machine, and no psychic was involved during a filming of the outcome of 20 dice spillings. Before viewing the resulting film in a large auditorium, the student groups (“sheep” and “goats”) were reminded that a suspected psychic’s ability was being tested, and their job, as observers, was to count the number of 6s that appeared during the showing of the film on an auditorium screen. A third group of student observers served as a control group in the study (wherein no questions were posed about their belief in ESP-related phenomena and no psychic was mentioned). A comparison of the average number of 6s counted by the three groups showed that (1) the "sheep" found clear evidence of psychokinesis (i.e., they reported an average number of 6s that exceeded chance expectations, based on statistical theory); (2) the "goats" found clear evidence of a reverse psychokinetic effect (i.e., they reported that the presumed psychic actually made the number 6 come up less often than one could reasonably expect based on chance alone); and (3) the control group found that the number of 6s was within the bounds of chance expectation. Therefore, prior expectations do apparently influence the perception of simple, so-called, objective events! The arousal of strong priors can distort one's perceptions. Clearly, expectations are not only prevalent, they are also powerful. Conclusion In summary, our prior expectations influence both our perception of others and our interpretation of their behavior. To enhance the performance of employees and work groups, managers must recognize the existence of SFPs and manage the impressions they convey to employees. Without advocating the active manipulation of others, we can advocate trying to solicit the very best that others are capable of by deliberately treating others in a positive, optimistic, and supportive fashion. As observed by management consultant J. S. Livingston, a manager who is unskilled will leave scars on the careers of young people, cutting deeply into their self-esteem and distorting their self-image. But a skillful manager will have high positive expectations for subordinates, thereby increasing subordinate self-confidence, capabilities, and ultimately performance. More often than one realizes, "a manager is Pygmalion."7 References 1. R.A. Jones (1977). Self-fulfilling prophecies: Social, psychological and physiological effects of expectancies. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. 2. R. Rosenthal and I. Jacobsen (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teachers’ expectations and pupil intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 3. A.S. King (1970). Managerial relations with disadvantaged workgroups: Supervisory expectations of the underprivileged worker, (Doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University). 4. D. Eden and A.B. Shani (1982). Pygmalion goes to boot camp: Expectancy, leaderships and trainee performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 194-199; D. Eden (1990). Pygmalion without interpersonal contrast effects: Whole groups gain from raising manager expectations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 394-400. 5. R. Rosenthal and K. Fode (1963). The effect of experimental bias on the performance of the Albino rat. Behavioral Science, 8, 183-189. 6. B.S. Kaufman and E.D. Sheffield (1952). A methodological flaw in ESP experiments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association. 7. J.S. Livingston (1988). Retrospective commentary on Pygmalion in management, Harvard Business Review, 47, 81-89.
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