Analyzing the Pygmalion Effect and its Impact on Employee Behavior

This essay discusses the Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect, which refers to the phenomenon where an employer's expectations of an employee influence the employee's performance. It also touches upon the Galatea Effect, which describes employee expectations of employers. The essay highlights how understanding and fulfilling employee expectations can enhance motivation and improve performance. It emphasizes the role of managers in creating and communicating expectations through performance reviews and fostering self-confidence in employees. The Pygmalion Effect can lead to increased individual employee performance and overall organizational competency, helping to address issues like high attrition rates in multinational corporations. However, the essay also cautions against setting performance expectations that are unrealistically high, as this can be counterproductive. The paper includes references to support its claims and provide further reading on the subject.

Running Head: Pygmalion Effect
Pygmalion Effect
Essay
System04104
6/27/2018

Pygmalion Effect
1
PYGMALION EFFECT
The expectations of the employer from its employee in the organization that leads to
an increase in the performance called ‘Pygmalion effect or Rosenthal effect’ and expectations
of employees from employers are called ‘Galatea effect’ (Farnam Street, 2018). Pygmalion
effect is beneficial when the organization knows about the expectations of the employee. By
full-filling, these expectations organization can motivate the employee and can enhance
his/her current performance, but when increment in the expectations is higher than the
increment in the work performance then it can again lead to decrease in work performance.
A manager can strongly influence the behaviour of employees. A manager must
understand these expectations of employee and utilize to enhance the work towards achieving
the organizational objective. Performance review is a common way through which manager
can create an expectation and communicate it to the workers. The performance review can be
used as an appraisal of an employee's earlier performance, the enhancement level of the work
performed in which employee will be awarded. A manager can use this tool to positively
influence the future performance of an employee (Karakowsky, DeGama, & McBey, 2012).
The Pygmalion effect could boost the performance of an employee by just only
putting belief and self-confidence in him/her. A simple motivation of an employee and
fulfilment of demand can enhance the performance at the high level because he/she will give
their best to the organization in turn of the reward or benefits (Rogel, 2018). Hence, a little
inspiration of the manager can help the employees to give their level best to meet the higher
expectation of the manager.
The Pygmalion effect can improve the performance of employee on individual level
while, on organizational level it will increase the competency of the organization to meet the
challenges from external business environment.
At the organizational level, Pygmalion effect helps in increasing productivity of the
organization by just identifying the expectations of the employee and full fill his/her needs.
But sometime it will be dangerous when the expected level of performance of the employee
is not as higher as manager expects (Bachkirov, 2017). The high attrition rate in the MNC’s is
the major problem that can be easily short out by using Pygmalion effect.

Pygmalion Effect
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References
Bachkirov, A.A. (2017). Pygmalion going international: Self-fulfilling prophecy in a non-
Western multicultural expatriate context. Team Performance Management: An
International Journal, 23(5/6), 260-272.
Farnam Street. (2018). The Pygmalion Effect: Proving Them Right. Retrieved from:
https://fs.blog/2018/05/pygmalion-effect/
Karakowsky, L., DeGama, N., & McBey, K. (2012). Facilitating the Pygmalion effect: The
overlooked role of subordinate perceptions of the leader. Journal of Occupational and
Effect: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 85(4), 579-599.
Rogel, C. (2018). How the Pygmalion Effect Can Increase Employee Engagement and
Performance. Retrieved from: https://www.decision-wise.com/how-the-pygmalion-
effect-can-increase-employee-engagement-performance/