Opinion
(2007-04-23)
BRUSH, CO
(KUNC) -
Nursing Home Potted Plant Studyby Marc Ringel, M.D.
KUNC April 23, 2007
There is an extensive psychological literature, with experiments to back it up, that confirms something we already know intuitively. Expectations play a big role in how people perform. Studies demonstrate, for example, significant leaps in IQ by spring among randomly selected students whose teachers had been told the previous fall to expect, based on some non-existent test results, that these particular children would make big gains. I just came across a study published in 1976 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that demonstrates how expectations can function just as potently at the other end of a lifetime.
The article, whose official title is The Effects of Choice and Enhanced Personal Responsibility for the Aged: A Field Experiment in an Institutional Setting, is referred to by those who know it as the Nursing Home Potted Plant Study. The researchers did their work at a large, well-run Connecticut nursing home, choosing as subjects 91 residents who ranged in age from 65 to 90, all of them pretty with it and able to get around.
Half the subjects, who lived on one floor of the institution, were brought together for a meeting where they heard the following speech given by the home's administrator. I was surprised to learn that many of you don't know the things that are available to you and more important, that many of you don't realize the influence you have over your own lives. The speaker went on to encourage these residents to rearrange their furniture, visit friends, plan social events, etc. They were told that they'd be consulted about changes in policy and procedure and were urged to give their input as well as to state specifically what they thought needed fixing. These residents were asked to choose whether they were going to attend the movie showing at the home on Thursday or Friday night.
The second, comparable group served as an experimental control. They lived on a different floor of the same facility. Their administrator talk went, I was surprised to learn that many of you don't know the things that are available to you; that many of you don't realize all you're allowed to do here. The administrator then stressed how the staff would take care of the residents' needs. If these residents were unhappy with anything, they were to tell their nurse so she could take care of it. Each person was told if her movie night was Thursday or Friday.
Residents in the first group could select one of the potted plants that had been brought to the meeting and take care of it as they wished. Every one of them elected to do so. The second group was given a plant that they were told the nurses would water and take care of.
Based on a survey of the residents themselves, 48% of the people whose responsibilities had been emphasized in these simple, unobtrusive ways said they were significantly happier three weeks after the meeting and plant distribution, compared to only 25% of their passive cohorts. The intervention group was also more active, based both on self-reports and on those of the nursing staff. They even attended more movies.
Here's the kicker. Seventy-one percent of the passive group were judged to have become more debilitated in just three weeks. Ninety-three percent of the people who had been encouraged to make decisions for themselves, had been given things to make decisions about, and had taken responsibility for the care of a little potted plant, showed overall improvement in this same interval.
It took nothing more than raising expectations of some of the residents and allowing them to assume responsibility for the wellbeing of one small living thing to enrich their lives and improve their function. That's a pretty astounding change to have resulted from such a simple intervention.
Today I urge you to ask yourself this one question, What are you expecting of everyone in your life? Of kids? Of adults? Of old folks? Of yourself? Let me start the ball rolling. I expect you and I are going to have a wonderful, productive and loving day.
© Copyright 2012, KUNC
