The Pygmalion Effect: How Your Beliefs Shape Your Child’s Success

There is a fascinating psychological phenomenon known as the Pygmalion Effect, which teaches that we can influence another person’s performance through the beliefs and expectations held about them by their surroundings.

The Rosenthal–Jacobson Experiment

In a well-known study conducted by Prof. Robert Rosenthal, a social psychologist at Harvard University, and Lenore Jacobson, a school principal in San Francisco, 18 elementary school classes were given IQ tests at the beginning of the year. Teachers were told that these tests were intended to identify “late bloomers” — students with high intellectual potential who were expected to show great academic improvement.

However, in reality, Rosenthal and Jacobson randomly selected 20% of the students in each class, with no connection to their actual test results.

At the end of the year, all students took another IQ test. The researchers compared the IQ gains of the randomly selected “late bloomers” with those of the remaining 80% of students. The result was striking: the students labeled as having high potential showed significantly greater IQ improvement than the others. The differences were statistically meaningful.

It is clear that teachers’ beliefs about their students’ potential can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and influence future performance.

How Beliefs Affect Behavior

The researchers explained that a teacher’s inner belief about a child affects the way the teacher speaks to them, treats them, and reacts to them — often unconsciously. This, in turn, affects the child’s performance.

However, expectations can improve performance only when they stem from a genuine internal belief.

That is why the researchers didn’t tell teachers, “Choose five students to believe in.” Instead, they convinced the teachers that certain students had actually been identified through advanced assessment. This created a true belief in those students’ abilities — and the belief shaped reality.

To help someone grow, external encouragement is not enough. We must truly believe in their future success.

A Reverse Experiment: Expectations Can Also Limit Performance

Rosenthal later conducted another experiment with Kermit Fode. Students were asked to teach genetically identical rats to run through a maze. Some students were told their rats were “smart”; others were told their rats were “dumb.”

Although the rats were identical, the “smart” rats learned far better, proving that negative expectations harm performance just as positive expectations enhance it.

How Our Expectations Shape Our Children

A mother or teacher who believes a child is “not capable enough” communicates this belief — through words, tone, behavior, or even subtle emotional cues. The child picks up these messages, consciously or subconsciously, and behaves accordingly.

Conversely, when we imagine and feel another person’s success, we help create that success. A mother who truly believes in her child’s potential transmits confidence and instills inner strength — even without saying a word.

A Talmudic Perspective: Belief Creates Ability

The Talmud states (Chullin 84b): “A person should eat and drink less than his means, dress according to his means, and honor his wife and children more than his means, for they depend on him, and he depends on the One who spoke and the world came into being.”

Rav Chaim Leib Shmuelevitz explains in Sichos Mussar (Essay 64): Because one’s family relies on him, their trust in him gives him the strength to provide for them. Their belief in him expands his own belief in himself, and this empowers him to succeed far beyond his natural limits.

If the wife and children sense abundance in the home, they develop confidence in the father’s ability to provide. That confidence strengthens his own internal sense of capability — and the belief becomes reality.

Believing in Others Creates Their Reality

Faith in another person plants within them the strength to achieve limitless success, in every area of life.

We must therefore think positively about our family members, friends, students, and everyone around us. The way we think about others does not remain in our minds, but it becomes their world.