I can't speak for that study in particular, but it doesn't really matter if it was the touch so long as it was not a measurement effect. There has been a decent

I can't speak for that study in particular, but it doesn't really matter if it was the touch so long as it was not a measurement effect. There has been a decent amount of research on the Pygmalion effect in varying contexts; it's opposite, the Golem effect, has had its share of research too. It's not an obscure phenomenon at this point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem_effect