What can DSL's learn from rats?
Today I'm talking about one of the toughest aspects of being a DSL: retaining enough optimism to harness the Pygmalion Effect.
*NB This article contains references to families or children. The details in these descriptions are completely made up, but used to make relevant points and/or represent underlying truths that have come from real experiences I have had in my work.
A while back I was in a multi-agency meeting about one of our vulnerable families, and I was having an argument with a Family Support Worker (sorry, I mean a ‘professional dialogue’).
In a nutshell, the Family Support Worker was saying that we were all spending far too much time talking about the problems and issues, when we should be focusing much more on the positives. He was telling me and the other professionals that we needed to be more ‘solution focused’: basically that we needed to stop moaning and have more of a ‘can-do’ attitude. I on the other hand was telling him that he was being deluded. That in order to be positive, he was choosing to ignore some really serious safeguarding concerns and that we couldn’t all stick our heads in the sand whilst the safety of actual living children was at stake.
Looking back on that conversation now, I can see that we were both right really. I was right in the sense of actually being right and not wrong (the case ended up escalating a lot, as more and more worrying information was discovered). But he was also right, in the sense that if we want to help families to transform their lives, we absolutely do need to build on the skills and qualities that they already possess, to create a positive vision of their future. So, there’s a real contradiction worth exploring here, between the way that we normally think about child protection work, and the potential benefits of having a more positive and optimistic approach.
What is the Pygmalion Effect?
In a famous experiment you may have heard of from the 1960’s, a group of lab rats were separated into two groups. The first group had been identified as being ‘smart rats’, with natural intelligence at things like problem solving. The second group were labelled the ‘dull’ rats (I do hope they only called them that behind their backs). The research assistants then ran the rats through a series of mazes and diligently recorded their times. And sure enough the smart rats out-performed the dull rats, consistently finding their way through the mazes quicker than their less smart counterparts.
None of this would be that surprising if it wasn’t for the fact that the research supervisor Bob Rosenthal had actually tricked his assistants. The two groups of rats were in fact completely made-up and had been selected entirely at random. The assistants didn’t know it, but both of the rat groups were actually just a group of plain old rats. Yet it seemed that something about the expectations of the assistants had then altered the performance of the rats. Rosenthal suggested that the assistants handled the rats they believed to be smart differently to the way that they handled the rats that they believed to be dull, and that this in turn meant that the rats performed differently in the maze tests. And he named this phenomenon The Pygamlion Effect.
I still find the results of this experiment pretty unbelievable. But if I think about children instead of rats it makes total sense. Anyone who has worked with children for more than five minutes will tell you that you need to have high expectations of your pupils in order for them to achieve, and that more to the point if you have low expectations of a child it is highly likely that they will act accordingly and fulfil those expectations for you. Sure enough, after his work with the rats Bob Rosenthal repeated his experiment, this time with school pupils. At the start of the academic year he told teachers that all of their pupils had completed a series of tests, and some of them had been identified as having high levels of untapped academic ability. Again, these children had in fact been chosen completely at random. And at the end of the year, sure enough those selected ‘smart’ children had made significantly more progress than their classmates. And similar results have been found in all sorts of fields. It can be used to make recruits in the military develop leadership skills. It can be used in workplaces to improve sales teams. They’ve even found that patients will recover quicker if their nurses believe that they are going to recover quicker. It’s not that people perceive someone has done better when they expected them to: it’s that they actually do do better. It really makes a difference.
So what are the implications of all of this for us as DSL’s? Let’s look at a few…
How can the Pygmalion Effect work for us?
Essentially, the findings of the many studies into the Pygmalion Effect suggest that in our safeguarding work, if we believe that a family will make positive changes, then they are more likely to make those positive changes. Let’s imagine that you start supporting a single mum who is struggling with her children’s behaviour at home. Things are chaotic, the children are acting out and everyone in the family is stressed. Well, the research suggests that if you believe that she can and will sort it out, then her chances of doing so will automatically go up. In six months time that family really are more likely to be getting to school on time, enjoying meal times and treating each other nicely.
In other words, if we want to help the families we work with, one of the simplest and best things we can do is just to believe in them. We don’t even necessarily need to learn how to demonstrate or communicate our positive beliefs. Remember that the assistants in the experiment were not told how to transmit their positive expectations to the rats. That stuff happened naturally if the belief was really there. Hundreds and thousands of little changes in the way that we talk and act when we are dealing with someone that we believe in, will add up to make a big difference. It’s as easy and as difficult as that.
So how can you build up your Pygmalion levels?
Well you can’t fake it. Rosenthal tried replicating the study in schools, but instead of tricking the teachers into thinking that some of their pupils had scored highly on natural intelligence tests, this time he just asked the teachers to treat some of their pupils as if they had higher levels of intelligence. The positive effects disappeared. Basically, it turns out that the teachers couldn’t really act like they believed the pupils were smarter unless they really thought that they were. Or maybe on some level the pupils could tell that the teacher didn’t really have increased belief in them, so they didn’t gain increased belief in themselves and the magic didn’t happen. To go back to our single mum, what this means is that you are going to have to find a way to really believe that she can do better. Just pretending you think she can won’t work.
I think we need to recognise that it’s not easy for any of us to suddenly adopt a more optimistic outlook, or to have more faith in others. And it’s really really not easy for DSL’s. As a DSL it can feel like the successes are rare and the failures are everywhere. You will spend far more time with the families that are stuck, than with the families that are success stories. Maybe there’s a psychological temptation to have low expectations as well, because then we’ll be less disappointed when we don’t manage to help. And then don’t forget that as a DSL you are supposed to be the person who is always able to consider the worst case scenarios. None of this sounds like the ingredients for optimism.
(Full disclosure, I might also be making excuses here for the fact that I am personally probably not a very Pygmaliony kind of guy. I’ve been working on it for years, and I’m better at it than I was, but it still doesn’t come naturally to me. In my defence this is at least partly down to my upbringing. When I was nine years old and I asked my Dad for some new football boots, he told me that he’d buy me some new boots when the boots weren’t the thing holding me back. Which was a nice confidence boost.)
A few ideas…
So if harnessing positive expectations could be valuable - but could also be difficult - lets look at a few ways we might be able to build-up or preserve our Pygmalion levels…
1. NOTICE SUCCESSES
We’ve got to dwell on things that go well. As a DSL you get paid to look at problems. But you have also got to find a way to notice and absorb all of the good things that happen as well. Every time I go to a celebration assembly I feel like my batteries are recharged, and I still don’t do it often enough. If you work in a primary school, scroll through a class list from Year 6, and look back at all of the children and families that have made progress whilst you’ve known them. Our brains needs that positive reinforcement, but they will only get it if we take the time to find it every now and then.
2. SHARE SUCCESSES
When things improve for a child or a family, talk to them about how and why they improved. Send a half-termly email amongst the people you work closely with sharing any success stories you’ve got. Ask teachers who in their class is doing well at the moment. At the end of the academic year write a bullet point list of positive things that you’ve helped to make happen over the last twelve months.
Or failing all of that, you can tell me about some good things. I’d love any of you to get in touch and tell me about a family that you have worked with who really managed to make those positive changes that we all want to see. Keep it anonymous obviously. As short or as long as you want. I promise I’ll reply. Just describe to me an occasion or case in which you really made a difference, and when things really got better against the odds. We can see if doing this boosts your Pygmalion levels! I’m certain it will help me to maintain my belief in the potential for change.
3. IF YOU CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THINGS WILL CHANGE, THEN AT LEAST BELIEVE THAT THEY CAN
If you really struggle with the Pygmalion Effect, then at least try to avoid the Golem Effect (where negative expectations act as a self-fulfilling prophecy). We are often justified in thinking that something is ‘unlikely to change’. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking it is ‘never going to change’. Human beings are capable of doing some incredible things, things that we might not logically think them capable of. As my Gran would say: “Never say never”. I think this video demonstrates the point better than I ever could…
To Pygmalion or not to Pygmalion?
One quick note of caution though: I still think that there are times when trying to utilise the Pygmalion Effect doesn’t feel appropriate. It’s definitely good to have belief in people’s ability to make things get better. But there are still going to be times when we’ve got to say that we can’t see how a child is going to be made safe without drastic action. The Pygmalion Effect will work well when problems are at a lower level and when you’re doing early intervention. It will help that single mum get everyone out of the house on time in the morning. But on its own it can’t perform miracles. It could make the rats go through the mazes quicker, but it couldn’t make them play the ukulele. This is the disagreement I was having with the Family Support Worker I mentioned in the first paragraph. If there are serious psychological disorders, addictions or dangerous adults in the house, then any optimism about change is going to have to be tempered by a real and unflinching recognition of the risks to children. The Pygmalion Effect is a force for good. Blind faith and naivety is a recipe for disaster.
And one last thing…
Finally, so far we’ve been talking about how we can use the Pygmalion Effect to help others. But what about if instead of picturing ourselves as the research assistants, we think of ourselves as the rats? Who is using the Pygmalion Effect on us? Who are the people around you that believe in you and in doing so help you run through the maze quicker? In my own school I am surrounded by hopeless optimists. They’re all brilliant. And I’m extremely lucky that many of them seem to apply at least some of that faith in me. There is virtually nothing more valuable in your job than someone that you know trusts and believes in you. My advice: if you’ve got those people around you, make sure that you appreciate them. And if you haven’t, then try and find or develop some. Being a DSL is really hard. We all deserve at least one cheerleader.