Read the following details about The Pygmalion Effect by Rosenthal and Jacobson 1968, a significant psychological study.
Professor Rosenthal, of Harvard University, and Jacobson, a principal of an elementary school in San Francisco, carried out an interesting field experiment to determine whether teachers’ expectations of students’ performance actually had any effect on how well the students learned throughout the year. Did what the teachers expect of their students come to fruition?
To start their study, Rosenthal and Jacobson gave 18 classes of students, aged 4 to 16, an intelligence test so that the researchers could see if there was a development through the year in which they carried out the study. Then they chose 20 per cent of the students at random and told the teachers that these children showed ‘unusual potential for intellectual growth’, and that they could be expected to ‘bloom’ during the year. However, because they were randomly selected, there was no relationship between the score they achieved on the test and this claim made by the psychologists.
At the end of the school year the students were retested. Those labelled as intelligent showed a significantly greater increase in test scores than the other children who were not singled out for the teacher’s attention. The researchers explained this by using the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ that the teachers’ expectations influenced the performance of the students.
Is this study ethical? Refer to the ethical guidelines for psychological research and state your reasons. Discuss some other research in your course materials that have led you to consider the importance of ethical guidelines for psychological research.
(Indicative word count — 500 words)
