Smart Rats or Not

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Examine how assumptions about competence influence collaboration, team expectations, and participation.

Use it when: Use during leadership or teaming workshops when examining unconscious bias, expectations, and feedback loops.

Skip it when: Skip when the group has low psychological safety, fragile trust, or when running high-stakes evaluative sessions.

Group arrangement: Pairs or small groups of 3 to 4 participants.

Timing: UWT suggested 15-minute standard workshop format. Source notes an intake intervention under 5 minutes.

Materials and tools

• One printed Team Problem Card per group of 3 to 4 (or per pair)
• One pen per in-person group
• One sheet of scratch paper per in-person group
• Timer
• Flip chart or digital whiteboard for debrief notes

Before participants arrive

1. Print or prepare digital copies of the Team Problem Card.
2. Set up a flip chart or shared whiteboard with the heading Countering Expectation Bias.

Say this to open

We will spend five minutes on a quick problem-solving challenge in small groups. As you work, pay attention to how ideas get offered, who takes the lead, and what assumptions we make about each person's skills.

How to run it

1. Set up the challenge 2 minutes

   Read the opening script. Form participants into pairs or small groups of 3 to 4. Distribute one Team Problem Card, one sheet of scratch paper, and one pen to each group, or display the prompt on screen. Explain that groups have 5 minutes to agree on 3 operational adjustments.

2. Run the work session 5 minutes

   Groups work on the problem card. Circulate neutrally without offering hints, preferential feedback, or extra encouragement to any single group. Provide a 1-minute warning before calling time.

3. Present the research framing 3 minutes

   Call time. Introduce Robert Rosenthal's experiments: teachers told random students were intellectual spurters produced higher gains, and lab researchers told ordinary rats were bright produced faster maze times. Explain the Pygmalion effect: expectations alter how leaders and peers interact with others, creating self-fulfilling outcomes.

4. Facilitate debrief and list habits 5 minutes

   Pose the debrief questions. Collect 3 to 4 verbal comments from the room. Then ask participants for concrete habits that counteract expectation bias on teams. Record 3 actionable habits on the flip chart or shared screen.

Debrief questions

• When you enter a project assumed to be an expert versus a beginner, how does that expectation change your contributions?
• What subtle signals communicate that a team member is viewed as high performing or low performing?
• What concrete habit ensures good ideas get heard even when the speaker is not viewed as the primary authority?

Finished output: A documented list of practical team habits that counteract unexamined expectation bias.

Remote

Place participants into video breakout rooms of 3 to 4. Provide the Team Problem Card text in a shared document or virtual whiteboard where each group types their 3 operational adjustments. Provide time alerts via broadcast chat. Reassemble in the main room for the research framing, conduct plenary debrief, and capture agreed habits on the shared digital whiteboard.

Hybrid

In-person participants form table groups of 3 to 4 using printed cards, scratch paper, and pens. Remote attendees join dedicated virtual breakout rooms of 3 to 4, accessing the card in a shared document and typing their adjustments directly into it. During plenary debrief, alternate between in-person speakers and remote chat or voice contributions. The facilitator records all shared habits onto a single shared digital document projected in the room and visible on the meeting screen.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may choose whether to speak, write notes, or observe during the breakout challenge.
• Anyone may pass on contributing to the whole-group debrief without explanation.

If the session gets stuck

Participants become defensive about how they treat colleagues.

Refocus the discussion on systemic team defaults and environmental cues rather than personal blame.

Groups get stuck arguing over the logistics scenario instead of discussing expectation dynamics.

End the scenario work strictly at five minutes and clarify that the scenario was a neutral backdrop for observing group dynamics.

Terms used here

• Pygmalion effect: A psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance, while lower expectations depress it.