The Huffington Post – Melanie Fine
“There was a famous study in the sixties by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, known in most circles as The Pygmalion Effect. Certain students with normal IQs were identified to teachers as having higher-than-normal IQs – referred to as “spurters” – and could be expected to do better that year than their peers. Not only did the mean IQ of the entire group improve at the end of the year, but the students identified as “spurters” showed statistically significant gains. In other words, children rise to the expectations we set for them. A belief that “I am not good at math” is self-propagating. A not-good-at-math person assumes his math incompetencies limit his ability to succeed in math, thereby avoiding opportunities to learn math and improve his math skills, further eroding his math skills. The belief that you are not a “math person” is a greater determinant of mathematics competence than some innate gift, or lack thereof.”(more)