Golem Effect At Workplace

February 23 2023 TalktoAngel 0 comments 2124 Views

Does it affect how you perform when you or someone else anticipates something bad? The Golem effect suggests that it actually can. Your performance may suffer if you are held to low standards by your managers, teachers, or even yourself. According to Dr (Prof) R K Suri, Clinical Psychologist, & Life Coach, "We can only discover what is possible for ourselves and the rest of humanity in the extremes, on the edges of existence, where life is worth living. The centre of the road leads nowhere and exposes only ambivalence and anxiety about man”.

Nearly every company, educational institution, and organisation has a "golem." This does not imply that you need fear enormous clay monsters chasing you along the halls of your school or in your workplace. When we refer to a "golem" in an organisational structure or a school, we are really talking about the Golem effect and how expectations and performance are related.

Examples of the Golem effect can be found anywhere, whether they are in universities, small businesses, or large corporations. Similar to the well-known Pygmalion effect, which holds that high expectations lead to high performance, the Golem effect holds that low expectations or negative expectations lead to low performance. The expectation in this situation could become a self-fulfilling prophesy with unfavourable outcomes. Can poor performance from an employee, as expected by the manager, lead to unfavourable outcomes? Or does it manifest in real life as well when a teacher labels a pupil a failure? Numerous investigations have been conducted to determine the viability of this notion.

The Golem effect is a concept used in contemporary psychology to describe the influence that having low expectations for someone has on their performance. A person can receive this message through both verbal and nonverbal cues (Tilting the head or raising eyebrows in disbelief). This psychological idea, which is typically observed in educational and organisational settings, is based on a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

There are expectations placed on a person at every stage of life, including expectations from friends and family, the boss at work, and one's own expectations of oneself. Our behaviour and the outcome of our activities are greatly influenced by these expectations. When someone is subjected to negative or minimum expectations, they typically respond in ways that are also negative or minimal. This stands in stark contrast to the Pygmalion effect, which is shown when higher expectations are placed on someone and better achievements are obtained.

If no one has faith in you, would you succeed? You wouldn't, why? You give a task your best effort, yet it is not acknowledged. This not only lowers your self-esteem, but it also prevents you from finding the motivation to finish the activity. Any person, whether in school, the workplace, or any other organisation, can get demotivated by the Golem effect, which results in less attention, less feedback or praise, and poor facilities. The Golem effect can be seen even in settings where supervisors transmit these unfavourable expectations nonverbally instead of verbally.

The Golem effect can also be linked to a person's lack of intrinsic motivation, in addition to the superior's bias. Sometimes when an individual's requirements for ego fulfilment or self-actualization (doing their best in every endeavour) are not met, they lose faith in their ability to complete the work.

The Golem effect has a substantial effect that can be seen everywhere from the offices and workplaces of multimillion dollar enterprises to bad performance in the educational system, organisations, and on the sports field.

In educational settings, where students were assigned to the Advanced, Honours, and Regular programmes, the Golem effect was seen in the ability tracking systems. Other students beyond those in the advanced programmes also encountered unfavourable teacher prejudice as a result of the stigma associated with being an Honours or Regular student. This thus had a detrimental effect on their results.

In businesses: It is simple to detect the Golem effect in firms and the typical relationship between managers and employees. In spite of the employee's best efforts, the manager would stay to the decision after they had identified the poor and high achievers. As a result, the individual is moved down the performance grid.

Managers or teachers must convey happy and upbeat sentiments to their staff or students in order to counteract its impacts. This is the secret to inspiring people and boosting their effectiveness. In addition, a person needs to motivate themselves by taking pleasure in the work they accomplish. The person should pursue success and power rather than looking for extrinsic incentives in the form of praise or a pay increase. This would result in improved performance, and soon the individuals who have been classified as "bad performers" might exorcise the golem demon.

Compassionate leaders in India & Asia Pacific countries have been engaging the best EAP service provider in India, to increase productivity at the workplace, reduce burnout, absenteeism, stress, etc., maintain a good work culture, and have better engagement of workers for increasing productivity.

Contributed by: Dr (Prof) R K Suri, Clinical Psychologist, Counsellor, & Life Coach & Aditi Bhardwaj, Psychologist