More by Glossary of selected Judgement and Decision-making, Belief-related, and other Psychology terms »
|
Self-fulfilling prophesy A term referring to the occurrence that things frequently turn out just as one expects, not as a testament to one's excellent predictive accuracy, but because one behaved in a manner which made one's expected outcomes more likely: actors' attitudes, beliefs, or assumptions about others can, without the actors having any intent, actually produce the very behaviours they initially expected to find.
A false definition of a situation adopted by the person evokes a new behaviour which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophesy perpetuates a reign of error, for the ‘prophet’ will cite the actual course of events as “proof” that he or she was right from the beginning: such are the perversities of ‘social logic’.
For example, a mistaken rumour about a financial institution’s insolvency can spark a panic creating pressures which may lead to the failure that was feared at the outset.
Some other examples:
A professional sportsperson, having read a newspaper column commenting on (and magnifying) problems they experienced in their most recent appearance – for a tennis player with their serve, for a cricketer “no-balls”, “wides”, or being given out “lbw”, or for a golfer bad misses on the greens, etc. – now finds that this “planting of a seed” seems to have activated a case of the “yips”: an apprehension or nervous pre-occupation with some aspect of performance which itself leads to an impairment in performance that was dreaded
If a clinician or therapist expects his or her new client to be co-operative, resistant, or emotionally fragile, etc., they may act towards that person in manner which makes it more likely that the client reacts in a way more consistent with the therapist’s expectation
or
conversely, if the new client suspects the therapist will be empathetic, intimidating, or overly critical, etc., they may conduct themselves in a way which actuates the clinician in that direction.
– –
”I’m sure no-one will like me at the party”
”If I go to the interview I really don’t think I’d get the job”
”I’ll never learn to swim properly!”
There are also seemingly-fulfilled prophesies, such as:
Staying clear of someone whom we think is hostile or unfriendly – rather than the target actively conforming to the expectancy, by our actions, we provide them with little opportunity to disconfirm the belief. We are now not in a position to observe any indications contradicting our first impressions.
In an experimental context a self-fulfilling prophesy refers to any effect of researchers’ expectancies on the participants’ responses. Has the experimenter, deliberately or otherwise, exerted some unplanned influence over subject behaviour? Aspects such as a researcher’s personality, demeanour, manner, or appearance could have a selective effect upon subject reactions. Furthermore, experimenters’ personal characteristics of age, sex, ethnic group or nationality, sexual orientation, etc., might also differentially act on subjects. Demand characteristics such as a researcher’s grimace, smile, anxious or relieved expression, frown, sigh, pleased or disdainful look, show of warmth or distant manner, outburst of annoyance or anger, or any number of other displays are likely to affect the way in which an experimental participant performs or behaves. (see: experimenter bias) (see also: Rosenthal effect, Confirmation bias, Observer effect, expectation, schema, perceptual set) Back to: Glossary A-Z Labels:
self-fulfilling prophesy, reference to the occurrence that things frequently turn out just as one expects, self-fulfilling prophecy |