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081 - The Expectation Effect: How Coaches Shape Performance
58 Plays17 hours ago
What if the most powerful coaching tool you have isn’t your program, your system, or your intensity — but your expectations?
In this episode, I break down the Pygmalion Effect and explain how the beliefs coaches hold — often unconsciously — shape athlete confidence, identity, and performance.
We’ll explore how expectations show up in daily coaching behaviors, why athletes rise (or stall) accordingly, and how to intentionally coach in a way that unlocks growth instead of capping potential.
*NEW* Education - Captains & Coaches course, "Why They're Not Listening - Coaching Today's Athlete": http://listen.captainsandcoaches.com
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#CoachingPsychology #AthleteDevelopment #SportsLeadership #CoachBetter #YouthSports #SportPsychology #LeadershipInSport #BuildConfidentAthletes #CaptainsAndCoaches #HighStandardsHighSupport #PygmalionEffect
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Transcript
Introduction to Leadership in Athletics
00:00:00
Speaker
Belief is a performance tool. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and
The Pygmalion Effect in Sports
00:00:08
Speaker
beyond. I'm your host Texan Quilkin and today we are exploring the Pygmalion effect.
00:00:15
Speaker
That line I started with is not motivational fluff. It's psychological reality. As coaches, our expectations don't just predict performance, they shape it. That's why practice is so important. We're training our athletes as much as to play as it is to think about their performance come game day.
00:00:35
Speaker
So the Pygmalion Effect, this is the science behind why athletes often rise and fall to the level that we as coaches, authority figures, expect them.
Expectations as Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
00:00:46
Speaker
And how coaches unknowingly create confidence or put ceilings on every single athlete, every single day, every single practice, every single lift, every single rep that they step into.
00:01:00
Speaker
Think about your past playing experience as an athlete. When was there a ceiling put on you? When did in an expectation be placed into that and then that reality that the coach painted became the actual reality of the play.
Belief and Athlete Behavior
00:01:18
Speaker
Far too often, you commonly hear this as a self-fulfilling prophecy, so the Pygmalion effect, those are the words that the coaches use to help frame and then shape their athlete's behavior.
00:01:31
Speaker
So the promise I'm going to cover today, we're going talk about why belief changes behavior, how low expectations silently sabotage athletes, and how to coach in a way that pulls performance out instead of pushing it down.
00:01:47
Speaker
So Pygmalion Effect, self-fulfilling performance, aka in plain language, this is the psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to higher performance and lower expectations lead to worse outcomes even when the talent starts out equal.
00:02:06
Speaker
It works through that self-fulfilling prophecy.
Research and Communication in Coaching
00:02:10
Speaker
Expect As coaches, we establish an expectations, then we start to treat our athletes in in a way of our expectations. Then they start to believe the expectations that we put on, and then their performance reinforces their own personal beliefs, confirming them. And it just creates this vicious cycle. And over time, they start to believe the label that we put on them initially as the coach.
00:02:38
Speaker
This happens in classrooms, and that's where most of the research for this stuff is in place. Look back to Captains and Coaches podcast episode 64 with Dr. David Yeager. So in his research, teachers told students they were high potential.
00:02:52
Speaker
Chosen at random, those students showed greater IQ gains simply because the teachers treated them differently and created this opportunity ahead of them where they believed that to step into the teacher's words that were put in place for them. The same thing happens in sport daily, subtly, and relentlessly.
00:03:13
Speaker
Think about your practice. We spent infinite 99% of the time at practice. How are we speaking and communicating to our athletes? So what expectations, when expectations drop for athletes, there's actually a term for this. It's called the Gollum effect. Think Lord of the Rings, where low belief quietly trains athletes to fail.
Feedback and Athlete Improvement
00:03:37
Speaker
Wild, so golem, like the the little Lord of the Rings guy, belief, effect, crazy. All right, so this is ah diving into more research. So this is Rosenthal, the four factors of how expectations actually change performance.
00:03:55
Speaker
Expectations don't work through speeches. They work through behavior over time. So we can't will them with one powerful speech to change the attitude about themselves that's been instilled practice after practice, day after day, whether it's from us on the sporting field, the sporting arena, or through school or home. So something to consider as well. So here are how coaches unknowingly signal belief or doubt every single day. Number one is climate.
00:04:24
Speaker
Creating a warmer tone, more eye contact, more care. How are you feeling? How was school today? What's going on in school outside of sports? So really getting to help them understand.
00:04:35
Speaker
And then more patience, understanding what happened in the world outside. Once they get to practice, then we can coach with more patience. Athletes expected to succeed. They feel welcome and not tolerated.
00:04:49
Speaker
Next up is input. Number two, more reps, more opportunity, better coaching cues. So what I love to tell the coaches I'm working with is cues, not conversations.
00:04:59
Speaker
What one word can we give them to take into the next rep? I've spoken on this many podcasts before where organizing drills where we have a conductor who's got the whistle that's keeping the reps going.
00:05:13
Speaker
Then we have a coach. who's waiting for the athlete to finish the drill and gives them that feedback so we have to close the loop if i as the conductor stop to coach then i kill the drill and we're missing out in the valuable reps just to save one person and if it turns into a long conversation they won't even remember what cue or what action step to take in their next rep so cues not conversation when with our input That's going to lead to higher quality challenges. We're pushing them to focus more, strive more, but giving them a simple rule of one to take into the next rep.
00:05:51
Speaker
Nick Winkleman, great coach, is his rule of one. Okay, so the energy that we invest where we believe it returns as a possibility, but we need that rep to close the loop. Next up, we have output. Who gets called on? Who gets leadership reps? Who gets trusted late in games? This is going to be essential for our athletes to then get the input.
00:06:15
Speaker
Now the output is going to be that performance, going to be that opportunity for them to put everything they learn to on display. So especially that is who is trusted late in games. I want to put them also in a position to understand that that they are the dude. They are the person. We want the ball in their hands to finish a game, and there's going to be valuable reps later in season. So as much opportunity as we can give them early, the better.
00:06:42
Speaker
Next up is feedback, high expectations of athletes with instructional feedback. Big for me is we have to close that loop. We may be able to see it because we're experienced coaches. We are giving them the feedback for the next rep, but did we close the loop the loop on the next rep on the next opportunity or if there's a game time decision game time direction that we gave Did we close the loop?
00:07:09
Speaker
What I have every single defense do that I work with is after they give up a goal They huddle up and they talk about it the order of operations in which they talk through it is alignment was everybody in the right position assignment whose man was that who was the slide who was the number two and then Last but not least, it's technique. How did it get done? How can we get improved?
00:07:30
Speaker
If they just just got simply out-athleted, I'm not mad at that. It's tough to out-technique, a phenomenal freak athlete, as skilled as they were. You can play perfect defense but still give up goals, and that's my feedback for them. They shouldn't hang their head.
00:07:46
Speaker
They should aim to learn from that bring it into the ah envelope of their abilities and be ready for the next time they get a chance to display athleticism against athleticism. a Beautiful thing.
00:07:59
Speaker
So this lines up directly with what we know about motivation and confidence. So informal feedback builds competence. That is is essential within our practice. So informal feedback, this is gonna be what I call between the whistles. How are we treating them? That's gonna reinforce how they believe about them, who they believe they are, what they believe about their character, and themselves.
Influence of Coaches on Athlete Identity
00:08:25
Speaker
So that informal feedback, that's going to be more of the the character and the confidence-based that we start to build up. And it's not always seeing them only as these instructional tools as athletes. We want to see them as people. That's going to help really build confidence and help them ah build that competence within sport and then later in life.
00:08:48
Speaker
Next we have controlling versus dismissive feedback. This completely erodes motivation and it it starts to create a toxic heavy environment over the long course of a season is going to be costly. That's when you'll see the the tipping point for certain teams when they have a tough loss. They played their hearts out but there was a tough loss and it broke the team.
00:09:13
Speaker
or they gave up one play in a game and it broke the team for that game. And they have to work really hard the next week or so to then rebuild that confidence. Then we have low expectation athletes and they get silence from a lot of coaches.
00:09:30
Speaker
And that's that breaks my heart. is it It's unfortunate. It happens all the time. So are we aiming to spread our our our love, our care throughout the entire team?
00:09:41
Speaker
And sometimes this looks like an 80-20 rule, where 20% of our producers within the team get 80% of our attention as coaches. But then i still need to not forget to give that extra 20% to the 80% that are still a big part of the program and the team, which need to be clear on their roles.
00:10:03
Speaker
And I'm not only criticizing them that took that 80%. That 20% of my coaching is not only criticism, it can be encouragement. It can be that between the whistles and get to know them.
00:10:15
Speaker
Who knows, they may surprise you or you may invest in them just as a person and then over the summer they took the initiative, they took the extra steps up, the rep extra reps because you believed in them and they showed up a whole different person.
00:10:28
Speaker
Or i as a strength and conditioning coach, I saw this all the time. People would come to me, I said, give me your third stringers. Then we train all off season, hand them back to the sport coach.
00:10:39
Speaker
And you know what the sport coach says? He must have just hit puberty. And my program finally worked for him. No, no. He actually trained his butt off during the summer and came back a freaking beast. That's what happened.
Mindset and Coaching Roles
00:10:50
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:10:53
Speaker
some experience there was talking. So expectations shape identity, self-image in the athlete's mind. This is why I love the weight room. the The push, the time, the effort that you put into the weight, it shows up on the bar.
00:11:10
Speaker
It shows up in your stat sheets over time. I trained my next door neighbor, a freshman in high school, in exchange for watching the doggos when I travel for presentations. And I have them record everything, handwritten, in a notebook.
00:11:24
Speaker
We're still following Train Heroic programs. But we write everything in a notebook, and then we flip back a year ago. Every time I see him now, we've been doing it for so long, flip back a year, and I remind him that his starting warm-up weight from...
00:11:40
Speaker
today, way back when, was his three by five for his linear progression. Blows his mind every single time. So that's fun. I also tally tonnages so we can see how much weight that he did every single day. And now we're really starting to to to crush those numbers.
00:11:58
Speaker
So that is an example. We are starting to shape his self-image and really lift up his confidence. He's starting to believe that he is a strong person and and shock his own world.
00:12:09
Speaker
So that is that is aiming to to to create a container of belief for them. So from your self-image work that we're instilling, whether it's in the weight room or between the whistles as a coach, the mind works in a cybernetic system. I talk about this with my podcast with my pal Luke Summers as our opportunity to steer behavior to whatever identity feels true. And us as coaches want to help create that container and make sure we get bumper lanes so that their direction of their brain is staying on track and does not veer off
00:12:50
Speaker
and believe anything that they, some some jealous kids or the internet, whoever, start to really plant the seeds and and pull them off track of who they believe they are.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's pretty easy to get off track, but us as coaches got to steer them in the right direction. So when a coach consistently signals you're reliable, you're capable, I expect growth from you. We're creating a high expectation, but also we have to remind them that we're there for the highest support.
00:13:21
Speaker
they The athlete's central nervous system organizes the behavior to confirm that belief that they are reliable, they are capable, and they're capable of growth because authority figure has that belief in them.
00:13:36
Speaker
The opposite is also true. So psycho cybernetics, low expectations, create hesitation, avoidance, self-sabotage. They're playing not to mess up. They're tense.
00:13:47
Speaker
And then what do we do as coaches when they do play one step slower or they do make a mistake? We yell at them. And then that reinforces and confirms their beliefs.
00:14:02
Speaker
It's not laziness often, or it's not being stupid. It's not being slow. It's not... being this label, whatever weight label we put on them, they're identifying in that defensive position and us as coaches are then reinforcing it by pushing them into their limbic brain, that fight, flight, freeze mode on the field when we need them in a flow state, mid brain, where they can read and react and choose what correct decision to make.
00:14:33
Speaker
in the field. So the coaching lane, this goes back to Dr. David Yeager's research, mentor versus an enforcer versus the protector mindset. This is where the Pygmalion becomes practical. Self-fulfilling prophecy, that's more of the athlete's behavior, which i'm go to explore a later episode. The Pygmalion is the mentor, the coach's behavior. We need it to be practical.
00:14:57
Speaker
So the the powerful expectation signal from Jaeger's research, mentor, enforcer, and protector, we're gonna cover that. So mentor reminder is high standards and high support.
00:15:09
Speaker
I expect a lot from you, and I'm here to help you meet it. This creates a positive Pygmalion effect. The enforcer mindset, high standards, low support.
00:15:21
Speaker
Hit the standard or sit. You do this or else. And there's no praise from coach because getting the job done or hitting their responsibility on the play is what they're supposed to do.
00:15:32
Speaker
So then coach withholds praise. That's what they're supposed to do. And then jumps on them as soon as they make a mistake or hesitation.
Practical Application of Expectations
00:15:42
Speaker
This triggers fear, shame, that fight, flight, freeze, threat response and performance drops, of course. Then the protector mindset. This is low standards and high support.
00:15:54
Speaker
I don't want you to feel bad. So we withhold our coaching. We withhold the information we want to give them, the correction, because we don't want to hurt their feelings. This signals a low belief in their capacity, in their capabilities.
00:16:10
Speaker
And then and it confirms and reinforces their feeling of I am not good enough because coach did not say anything. So what can we give them? What highlight can we give them? Highlight effort.
00:16:23
Speaker
Highlight attitude. and then give them the one cue, ruler one, to bring into the next next rep, next opportunity. This quiet, this is a quiet golem effect that starts to to take hold, and then it's quietly reinforcing their own self-limiting beliefs in there.
00:16:40
Speaker
So, athletes, reminder, athletes don't need saving. They need belief and structure and a leader to help lead them. All right. so how I encourage you to use this understanding of the Pygmalion effect on purpose.
00:16:57
Speaker
I want you to weaponize belief f ethically. So here's a few steps here. One, assume growth is possible from everyone. Drop this kid,
00:17:08
Speaker
Drop the, this kid doesn't just have it narrative. That's a self-limiting belief that you are putting onto it. And I see this all the time at the club level, and it kills me.
00:17:20
Speaker
They don't have practice time. They get the kids for the tournaments, for the games, and then they put them out there for one run, label them, that coach doesn't want to lose the game. So then he puts that kid on the end of the bench because he made one mistake and the one opportunity to get, and there is no practice with it.
00:17:37
Speaker
So now what does that kid start to reinforce? He gets less and less playing time. The other kids on the club ball team, but he doesn't have the practice time to show the coach he's capable after one misstep.
00:17:50
Speaker
Very common in the club scene. So brains and skills are trainable, especially in adolescence. Uh, Jaeger talks about this in his book, 10 25. Check that out. check that out so Number one, assume growth is possible. Number two, coach everyone like a project.
00:18:07
Speaker
High standards, clear instruction, and visible effort. Everyone can get better at all times, even the coaches, whether it's with the coach's skill or their ability to communicate.
00:18:18
Speaker
which is our next loop, which is use wise feedback. I'm giving you this feedback because I have a high standard and I know you can meet them. That sentence alone changes how the brain receives correction. It shows that there is a higher ceiling than where they're at.
00:18:35
Speaker
There's room to grow. Yes. You hit the effort mark. However, I need to see one, two, three out you. Or way to hit that one direction that I gave you. Now here's the next thing I need you to focus on.
00:18:48
Speaker
This leans into, again, elementary education. I'm big on it. This is a concept called chunking. um So piecing feedback together one thing at a time, still giving them rule of the one, but then ensuring them they hit that mark once they do actually hit the mark and then giving them another step, another direction to add on to that.
00:19:10
Speaker
Okay. And last but not least, signal belief through opportunity. I mentioned the club ball taking reps away. Give the kids that need more reps under stress in game time, more opportunities. And I talked to this with the Notre Dame defensive coordinator for lacrosse and how he still competes at a high level in games and then starts to future prep with dudes that are currently on the roster, so freshmen and sophomores. So every third rep for a certain position, he gives the younger guy an opportunity during game time, second, third quarter, that is not as drastic, not as valuable.
00:19:53
Speaker
And then over the course of the season, their experience builds up and they're trusted by coach and themselves and their teammates to step out on the field come playoff time.
00:20:05
Speaker
So check that episode out, 68, I believe, Coach Ryan Wellner. And we talked about this exact ah exact deal, giving more opportunity and leadership reps, hard assignments, real responsibility to younger guys for when they do have to take on the the leadership burden.
00:20:23
Speaker
What I like
Reassessing Coaching Approaches
00:20:24
Speaker
to do within the respect to team captains is put a junior onto the stack of steam captains so they have one year of experience, maybe setting the example as a leader with their actions, with their behaviors. So when now they're ready to find their voice as a senior, they've got the leadership reps or at least standing in front of the team.
00:20:51
Speaker
So that's real responsibility that then gives them confidence to step into the next year when they have to use their voice. So belief becomes real when athletes feel trusted.
00:21:04
Speaker
That's why I like the junior captain. I was a sophomore, just ah throwing that out there, but that that's really digging deep. So if they are they are setting the example as a captain, I'm not mad at being the leading, the the sophomore get up there as well.
00:21:19
Speaker
And that was my evolution was the example sophomore by junior aiming to have the confidence starting to say things between the whistles and then ready to rock by my final year for the whole shebang. All right.
00:21:35
Speaker
So closing challenge for you, coach, the expectation audit. Athletes don't rise to potential. They rise to expectation and environment. What environment are we creating as a coach?
00:21:48
Speaker
So your challenge for this week, identify one athlete who's unintentionally labeled one of those golem effects. they're They're hiding at the end of the line during the drills.
00:22:00
Speaker
They're in the back of the film room waiting and praying that you run out time in your film session so they don't get called out. Intentionally identify them and find how you can improve and give more more attention to them.
00:22:16
Speaker
then raise your expectations of your whole team. I had a great interview with the head co head coach of Holy Cross Lacrosse, and he changed my mindset and framework on this. Instead of be the example as a leader, set the example.
00:22:34
Speaker
You heard me, if you were listening, catch myself on that earlier this episode. So now I'm raising the expectations and then every single year those expectations raise. It's not just a example. It's changing the example and rising the standard every single season.
00:22:51
Speaker
So this is difficult to ask, but increase your investment. You may be giving a lot of time to your kids, but I want you to think about how that time is spent and coach them like growth is inevitable.
00:23:06
Speaker
And this is why I'm big fan of of Dr. Yeager's research is because instead of the growth mindset for the kids, he turned that research on his head and started to empower the educators to have the growth mindset And then that created the environment for the kids to take on the growth mindset and really step into that belief that's established by Dr. Carol Dweck.
00:23:31
Speaker
So coach them, coach the hell out of them like growth is inevitable because the most powerful performance tool you have is what your athletes believe you believe about them.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:23:43
Speaker
That's all for the show. If you want the show notes, sign up for the newsletter. Head captainsandcoaches.com to do so. If you want to learn more, I have courses on there, listen.captainsandcoaches.com. If you like the podcast, like, subscribe, all that good stuff.
00:23:58
Speaker
Until then, I'll see you next time. I'm rambling, having a great time. All right. Thank you very much for listening. right. See you.