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Here are some real‑life examples of the Golem Effect—the phenomenon where low expectations actually tank performance:
🏫 Education
Teachers—often unconsciously—give less attention, fewer challenging tasks, and limited feedback to students they perceive as “low ability.” As a result, those students disengage and perform poorly, essentially fulfilling the negative prophecy reddit.com+15crowstv.com+15themindcollection.com+15. One study even found teacher expectations affected student achievement up to 14 years later en.wikibooks.org.
💼 Workplace
Managers who label an employee as a “low performer” may bypass them for important projects, give minimal guidance, and micro‑manage them. The result? The employee underperforms, reinforcing the boss’s initial bias . One factory story paints it vividly: a supervisor assumed native-born workers would be sub‑standard, so they were neglected—and they did lag behind… until the manager told the supervisor those same hires were top‑talent. Once expectations shifted up, so did performance jeroen-de-flander.com+1en.wikipedia.org+1.
⚽ Sports & Training
Coaches who doubt an athlete’s capability may reduce their practice time, calling them less in games and ignoring their progress. That athlete loses confidence and stumbles, confirming the coach’s initial doubt crowstv.com.
🏛️ Organizational & Military Settings
Experiments at the US Air Force Academy manipulated labels on cadets—“high” vs. “low” potential. Those tagged “low” saw deteriorations in performance consistent with Golem predictions teachingenglishwithoxford.oup.com+7en.wikipedia.org+7journals.aom.org+7. Similar patterns have been observed in corporate and military contexts—low expectations yield low results crowstv.com+2psychologenie.com+2themindcollection.com+2.
🔁 Self‑fulfilling Prophecy on a Systemic Scale
Education tracking systems (streaming by ability) institutionalize low expectations. Students in lower tracks get less rigorous coursework and pitch-in, performing worse simply because that’s what was expected of them .
🎯 A Reddit Teacher’s Warning (paraphrased)
“Leave content on the board… not urging them to do any work… you’re fighting the whole school culture… you can’t change it by yourself.” reddit.com
They describe the burnout when trying to uplift a class that’s been written off.
TL;DR
Expecting someone to fail? That’ll do wonders—for failure. The Golem Effect is basically negative expectations baked into behavior and task allocation. Fix it by raising expectations for everyone—treat less‑favored folks like future stars, and watch the cycle reverse (hello, Pygmalion Effect).