Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's Pygmalion in the Classroom and further experiments have shown that expectations of supervisors or teachers affect the performance of their subordinates or students.
[8] The author induced a "labeling effect" by randomly assigning incoming freshmen to one of five class sections supposedly designating ability levels.
Davidson and Eden suggested a number of "de-Golemization" efforts such as convincing the group that the initial performance measures underestimate true potential in order to reduce this threat.
[16][17] This lack of research is especially glaring considering the golem effect is heavily involved with other established motivational theories and organizational behavior concepts such as self-efficacy, leader-member exchange, and transformational leadership.
[9] There is currently a relative paucity of research that directly addresses Golem effects, and an even lesser body that measures and examines it.
These effects could originate either from the participant having the knowledge that they performed worse than others, were unwittingly manipulated to perform worse, or were viewed negatively by a superior in the research paradigm; on the other hand, participants in a position of superiority that were manipulated to have negative expectancies may feel guilty about treating others differently following the experiment.
There is evidence that even studies that directly generate and measure Golem effects in participants are still very viable and can be passed by ethics boards and other regulatory bodies.
For example, a recent study examined how Japanese humanitarian aid workers stationed in different countries across the world perceived and interacted with the local organizations that they consulted with.
[20] The researchers found support for the notion that when the aid workers held more positive perceptions of their local colleagues, higher levels of organizational performance were observed.
Such findings raise the question of whether Golem effects would also be observed in such multicultural settings and provides ample opportunity for future research inquiry.
[21] As such, there is great opportunity for research in examining the effects of older employees' expectations and perceptions of younger supervisors, a phenomenon that has been labeled as Reverse Pygmalion.
This would be an example of the "reverse" phenomenon due to the fact that the typical Golem effect runs in the direction of supervisor's expectation down to subordinates' behavior.
Lastly, there have been concerns raised about the Pygmalion effect possibly being an artifact of interpersonal contrast effects;[23] by experimentally focusing high expectations on a treatment group, the control group (which typically receives no manipulation in Pygmalion studies) naturally is perceived with lower expectations.
There is also great relevance for the Golem effect in sports, where a coach (a superior) must frequently gauge his or her outward displays of expectations towards individual teammates (the subordinate) in order to ensure that he/she is not sending negative messages.
[25] As such, it is far more ideal for coaches to engender high expectations towards all team members in order to harness the power of the Pygmalion effect.
Finally, there is something to be said about Golem effects towards disenfranchised and stigmatized demographics in society such as the homeless, intellectually disabled, and other groups often looked down upon.
However, there is great hope for such trends to be stopped or even reversed, as evidenced by multiple government and non-profit programs aimed at recognizing and empowering these individuals to succeed in the modern workforce.