Individual Listing

3111B PSYCHOLOGY BUILDING
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Rosenthal, Robert

Distinguished Professor of Psychology

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Psychology


Biography

For over 40 years I have been fascinated by the psychology of interpersonal expectations; the idea that one person's expectation for the behavior of another can come to serve as self-fulfilling prophecy. Our experiments have been conducted in laboratories and in the field, and we have learned that when teachers have been led to expect better intellectual performance from their students they tend to get it. When coaches are led to expect better athletic performance from their athletes they tend to get it. When behavioral researchers are led to expect certain responses from their research participants they tend to get those responses. For almost as long as I've been interested in interpersonal expectations I've also been interested in various processes of nonverbal communication. In part, this interest developed when it became clear that the mediating mechanisms of interpersonal expectancy effects were to a large extent nonverbal. That is, when people expect more of those with whom they come in contact, they treat them differently nonverbally. Some of our most recent research on nonverbal behavior has examined "thin slices" of nonverbal behavior -- silent videos or tone-of-voice clips of about 30 seconds or less. Some of our more recent work with these thin slices shows that we can predict, using 30 seconds of instructors' nonverbal behavior, what end-of- term ratings college students will give their instructors. From thin slices of doctors' interactions with one set of patients, we can also predict which doctors are more likely to be sued by a different set of patients. Finally, jury verdicts can be predicted from the nonverbal behavior of the judges as they instruct the jury. I also have strong interests in sources of artifact in behavioral research and in various quantitative procedures. In the realm of data analysis, my special interests are in experimental design and analysis, contrast analysis, and meta-analysis.

Former Institution

Harvard University

Degrees

BA Psychology 1953

UC Los Angeles

PhD Psychology 1956

UC Los Angeles

Awards

2009 Western Psychological Association, Lifetime Achievement Award
2009 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow
2002 Distinguished Scientific Award for Applications of Psychology, APA
2002 Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, APA Division 5 - Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics
2000-01 Professor of the Year Award,
2001 Distinguished Psychology Alumni Lecturer, UCLA
2001 James McKeen Cattell Award, American Psychological Society
1996 Distinguished Scientist Award, Society of Experimental Social Psychology
1996 Golden Anniversary Monograph Award, Speech Communication Association with J. Burgoon and B. Le Poire
1993 AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research, with N. Ambady
1988 Donald Campbell Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
1988-89 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
1979 Distinguished Career Contribution Award, Massachusetts Psychological Assoc
1973-4 Guggenheim Fellowship
1972 Senior Fulbright Scholar, Australian American Educational Foundation, U of Sydney, Macquarie U., Flinders U.
1967 Cattell Fund Award, APA Div. 13, First Prize, with L. Jacobson
1960 AAAS Socio-Psychological Prize, with K. Fode


Research Area

Professor Rosenthal's research has centered for over 40 years on the role of the self-fulfilling prophecy in everyday life and in laboratory situations. Special interests include the effects of teacher's expectations on students' academic and physical performance, the effects of experimenters' expectations on the results of their research, and the effects of clinicians' expectations on their patients' mental and physical health. For some 40 years he has been studying the role of nonverbal communication in (a) the mediation of interpersonal expectancy effects and in (b) the relationship between members of small work groups and small social groups. He also has strong interests in sources of artifact in behavioral research and in various quantitative procedures. In the realm of data analysis, his special interests are in experimental design and analysis, contrast analysis, and meta-analysis. His most recent books and articles are about these areas of data analysis and about the nature of nonverbal communication in teacher-student, doctor-patient, manager-employee, judge-jury, and psychotherapist-client interaction. He is Co-Chair of the Task Force on Statistical Inference of the American Psychological Association.

Publications

Contrasts and effect sizes in behavioral research: A correlational approach. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (with R.L. Rosnow & D.B Rubin)
People studying people: Artifacts and ethics in behavioral research. New York: Freeman, 1997. (with R.L. Rosnow)
Pygmalion in the classroom. Expanded edition. New York: Irvington, 1992. (with Lenore Jacobson)
Meta-analytic procedures for social research. Revised edition. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991.
Judgment studies: Design, analysis, and meta-analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.