Positive Expectations - The Rosenthal and Jacobson Study

Positive Expectancy, the positive use of the self-fulfilling prophecy, is the necessary condition for a positive thinking model to work successfully. The leader must have a firm and fervent belief that the children will succeed and be willing to go the extra mile to ensure the success. We are going to get what we expect to get so let’s expect correctly.

The psychology books are full of the effects and power of Positive Expectancy. People in leadership/parenting/teaching roles have expected good things to happen and they did. In schools and in business, we talk about halo and Hawthorne effects. There are true stories of teachers mistaking children's locker numbers for I.Q. scores and creating good results from “slow learners.” The changing of the lighting in the workplace and workers increasing their production because they felt the bosses cared about them (the Hawthorne Effect).

A positive expectancy research is documented in the book, Pygmalion in the Classroom. The researchers, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, conducted a simple study. In the Spring of 1964, they administered a meaningless test to a number of children in kindergarten and in grades one through five. They informed the teachers that this was a test to determine a child's ability to acquire new information. Without evaluating the tests and at random, they selected about 20 percent of the children and labeled them ‘potential academic Spurters.’ In an informal way, at the preschool workshops and in chance meetings in the halls, they informed the teachers of the ‘Spurters’ that these children could be expected to show unusual intellectual gains in the year ahead.

At the end of the year, the Spurters showed a significantly higher achievement growth than the non-selected children. In addition, the teachers described the Spurters as having a better chance of being successful later in life, as being happier, more curious, and more interesting than the other children. The teachers didn’t spend more time with the Spurters nor did they talk a greater amount of time with them. The explanation seemed to lie in the quality of the relationship between the teacher and the individual children. Somehow, by voice, touch, facial expression, and posture, the teachers communicated their expectation of success to each child, who in turn seemed to have gained a more positive self-image and a higher expectation of being successful in the learning tasks.

So, let’s add this to the interpersonal, communication relationship that we have with our players. Let’s expect them to do well, to practice hard, to deal with the ups and downs appropriately, and in all other phases of the game. We can treat our kids as growing, learning people by using honest, positive comments – or we can do all that senseless hollering, cutting down, and demeaning stuff. It’s our choice.

Children have many great expectations and it's the master mentor who helps them to realize their expectations.