smarter than their peers—the difference “was in the mind of the teacher.”
Yet the bloomers became smarter than their peers, in both verbal and reasoning ability. Some
students who were randomly labeled as bloomers achieved more than 50 percent intelligence gains in
a single year. The ability advantage to the bloomers held up when the students had their intelligence
tested at the end of the year by separate examiners who weren’t aware that the experiment had
occurred, let alone which students were identified as bloomers. And the students labeled as bloomers
continued to show gains after two years, even when they were being taught by entirely different
teachers who didn’t know which students had been labeled as bloomers. Why?
Teachers’ beliefs created self-fulfilling prophecies. When teachers believed their students were
bloomers, they set high expectations for their success. As a result, the teachers engaged in more
supportive behaviors that boosted the students’ confidence and enhanced their learning and
development. Teachers communicated more warmly to the bloomers, gave them more challenging
assignments, called on them more often, and provided them with more feedback. Many experiments
have replicated these effects, showing that teacher expectations are especially important for
improving the grades and intelligence test scores of low-achieving students and members of
stigmatized minority groups. In a comprehensive review of the evidence, psychologists Lee Jussim
and Kent Harber concluded, “Self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom are real.”
But we all know that children are impressionable in the early phases of intellectual development.
When Dov Eden began his research at the IDF, he wondered whether these types of self-fulfilling
prophecies could play out with more fully formed adults. He told some platoon leaders that he had
reviewed aptitude test scores, evaluations during basic training, and appraisals from previous
commanders, and that the “average command potential of your trainees is appreciably higher than the
usual level... Therefore, you can expect unusual achievements from the trainees in your group.”
As in the elementary school study, Eden had selected these trainees as high-potentials at random.
He was testing the effect of leaders believing that their trainees were high-potentials. Amazingly, the
trainees randomly labeled as high-potentials did significantly better on expertise tests and weapons
evaluations than the trainees who were not arbitrarily designated as high-potentials. Just like the
teachers, when the platoon leaders believed in the trainees’ potential, they acted in ways that made
this potential a reality. The platoon leaders who held high expectations of their trainees provided
more help, career advice, and feedback to their trainees. When their trainees made mistakes, instead
of assuming that they lacked ability, the platoon leaders saw opportunities for teaching and learning.
The supportive behaviors of the platoon leaders boosted the confidence and ability of the trainees,
enabling and encouraging them to achieve higher performance.
Evidence shows that leaders’ beliefs can catalyze self-fulfilling prophecies in many settings
beyond the military. Management researcher Brian McNatt conducted an exhaustive analysis of
seventeen different studies with nearly three thousand employees in a wide range of work
organizations, from banking to retail sales to manufacturing. Overall, when managers were randomly
assigned to see employees as bloomers, employees bloomed. McNatt concludes that these
interventions “can have a fairly large effect on performance.” He encourages managers to “recognize
the possible power and influence in (a) having a genuine interest and belief in the potential of their
employees... and (b) engaging in actions that support others and communicate that belief...
increasing others’ motivation and effort and helping them achieve that potential.”
Some managers and teachers have already internalized this message. They see people as
michael s
(Michael S)
#1