The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Theory

The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy

The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy was defined by Wool folk, A. (2013:538) as a groundless expectation that is confirmed because it has been expected. It is a tendency for our expectation to foster the behaviour that is consistent with our expectation.

Robert Merton is credited for coining the term and formalizing its structure and consequences. Robert K. Merton, born as Meyer Robert Schkolnick, was an American Sociologist, born on the 4th of July, 1910 in Philadelphia USA. He changed his name to Robert K. Merton which evolved out of a teenage career as an amateur magician. He went to South Philadelphia High School, then Temple University. He taught at universities such as Harvard, Temple, Tulane and many others. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor.

He was named the university’s highest academic rank. Merton died on the 23rd of Feb. 2003 in New York at the age of 92. He developed notable concepts such as unintended consequences, the reference group, etc. but perhaps he is best known for having created the terms ‘Role Model’ and ‘Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”. Merton (1968) defines it with an example and said ‘when Maria falsely believes her marriage will fail her fears of such failure actually cause the marriage to fail.’ The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true.

Merton’s concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy stems from the Thomas theorem, which states that ‘if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’. According to the theorem, people react not only to the situations they are in, but also and often primarily, to the way they perceive the situations and to the meaning they assign to these perceptions. Therefore, the behaviour is determined in part by their perception and the meaning they ascribe to the situations they are in, rather than the situations themselves. Once people convince themselves that a situation really has a certain meaning, regardless of whether it actually does, they will take real actions in consequence.

Merton applied the concept to a social phenomenon where he conceives of a bank which becomes insolvent as a result of a rumour that it was insolvent. The bank was not insolvent but the rumour of insolvency caused a sudden demand of withdrawals by too many customers, causing the bank to become insolvent and declare bankruptcy. Merton concludes that public definitions of a situation (prophecies or predictions) become an integral part of the situation and thus affect subsequent developments. The rumoured insolvency of the bank did affect the actual outcome. The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfilment.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is usually considered negative, but it can also be positive. When it is positive, it is called the Pygmalion effect. An example of the Pygmalion effect is demonstrated in that classic study conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson, to demonstrate the power of expectations to create reality. The teachers were told falsely that the predictions had been determined by testing done earlier that year. The teachers’ expectations for those randomly chosen students caused them to treat them (students) differently, providing better and more feedback, asking more questions etc. and this resulted in better academic performance, thus fulfilling the prophecy of academic excellence that was made. So this is the Pygmalion effect because the self-fulfilling prophecy was positive.

When we experience a self-fulfilling prophecy, we are experiencing a cognitive error. Cognitive error is when our mind convinces us of something that is not actually true. We assume that something will happen, and when it does, we assume we were right, but we do not attribute the result to our behaviour which is what actually caused that something to happen.

The term expectations refer to strong beliefs that something will happen or will be the case. Sustaining expectation effect is the maintaining of a student’s performance at a certain level as teachers do not recognise improvements.

Applications of self-fulfilling prophecy

Self-fulfilling prophecy has been applied in many disciplines outside the classroom, for example in sports, in literature, in the European fairy tales and many more.

The Law of Attraction, the newest thought, is another typical example of self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the name given to the belief that ‘like attracts like’ and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results. According to this law the beliefs in mind affect someone’s intentions which make the expected results happen.

Narrowing the concept to the classroom, two types of expectation effects can be observed.

· The first one is where the teacher’s beliefs about the students’ abilities have no basis but the students’ behaviour comes to match the initially inaccurate expectation such as in the study conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson.

· The second kind of expectation effect occurs when the teachers are fairly accurate in their initial reading of students’ abilities and respond to students appropriately, for example the teacher can observe the behaviour of a student at the beginning of the school term and through that observation the teacher can form correct expectations which might come to fruition by the end of the term.

However, the problem comes when the ‘sustaining expectation effect’ falls into place, where students show some improvement but the teachers do not change their expectations to take account of the improvement. This, as already mentioned, is the sustaining expectations effects. Some students are more likely than others to be recipients of sustaining expectations. For example withdrawn children provide little information about themselves, so teachers may sustain their expectations about these children for lack of new in information

Sources of teachers’ Expectations

Teachers form expectations from various sources. These sources may include

· intelligence test scores. If these test scores are not interpreted correctly, the teachers may form wrong expectations.

· Gender is another source of teacher expectation. The teacher may assume more problems for boys and higher academic achievement for girls.

· Notes from previous teachers, medical or psychological reports in students’ files can also be sources of teacher expectation.

· Prior knowledge about family members of the student can also be a source of teacher expectation.

· Appearance is another source of expectation. The teacher may have higher expectations for attractive students and low expectations for unattractive ones.

· Previous achievements of the student can also be a source.

· Socioeconomic status is another source. Research has shown that self-fulfilling prophecy tends to be stronger for students from low socioeconomic status.

· Race and Ethnicity, and the actual behaviour of the student can make the teacher form expectations.

· Teachers can form expectations basing on the student’s after-school activities. They tend to hold high expectations for students who participate in extracurricular activities than for those that do nothing after school. Some teachers hold expectations at the class level.

Effects of teachers’ expectations on learners’ performance

Even though teacher expectations can affect student achievement, the effects are modest on average and tend to go away over the years. The low-expectation students can actually reject those expectations and convince the teachers that their expectations are wrong by producing quality work or behaving differently.

It has been observed that the effects of expectations depend on the age of the students. The younger students are more susceptible while the older students are susceptible to the sustaining expectations.

It also depends on how differently the teacher treats the high and low-expectation students. Basing on the expectations, some teachers may use different instructional strategies and also have different relationships with students.

Self-fulfilling prophecy as already mentioned is a process by which one’s expectations about another person eventually lead the other person to behave in ways that confirm these expectations.

There are four steps to self-fulfilling prophecy.

· The first step; the perceiver has expectations about how the target will behave.

· Second step; the perceiver then behaves in a way that is likely to elicit the expected target behaviour.

· The third step; the target indeed behaves in a way that confirms the perceiver’s expectations.

· And finally the fourth step, the perceiver sees the predicted behaviour.

The following is an example to illustrate the above. A teacher who thinks that a student in his class is gifted may ask the student more challenging questions and praise the student than the other students in the class. This may result in the student achieving better grades than the other students in the class.

Similarly your professor expects you to do well and she spends extra time with you preparing for the exam, so you get an ‘A’.

Another example outside the classroom; a coach expects his freshmen to be uncoordinated and unskilled, so he does not play them often and when he does they are ‘rusty’ and do not perform well, thus fulfilling his expectations of ‘uncoordinated and unskilled’.

Some teachers show their expectations as they are teaching. For example they would divide the students into ability groups and assign work to both groups. To the low achieving group, group ‘B’, the teacher passes remarks like, ‘group B will have difficulties with this task’. With such remarks the teacher is actually telling group B that they are incapable and expects them not to do well.

While for group A, the high expectation students, some activities may become inappropriate and boring especially when they are ready for more challenging work but the teacher will not give them an opportunity to try it because she or he thinks they cannot handle it. In both cases, the teacher makes her or his expectations clear, thus the low expectations and the sustaining expectations respectively.

Teacher-student interactions affect the students greatly. Students who are expected to achieve tend to be asked more and harder questions. They are given more chances and a longer time to respond. They are interrupted less often than students who are expected to do poorly.

Some expectations are positive while others are negative. Negative teacher expectation can be very detrimental to the students. So to avoid the negative effects of teacher expectations, Woolfolk (2013:540) indicate that the teachers could apply the following measures;

· Use information about students from tests, cumulative folders, and other teachers very carefully. For examples they must avoid reading folders early in the year, be critical and objective about the reports they hear from other teachers and be flexible in their expectations for a student’s label or else the judgment might be wrong.

· The teachers must be flexible in their use of grouping strategies. Review of students’ work must be done often and experiment with new groupings, using different groups for different subjects and using mixed-ability groups for different subjects.

· It is also important that the teachers provide both challenge and support. High expectations must come with academic and emotional support for students’ struggles because holding high standards without providing a warm environment is merely harsh. A warm environment without high standards lacks ‘backbone’.

· Teachers must be especially careful about how they respond to low-achieving students during class discussion. For example give prompts, cues and enough time to answer. Give ample praise for good answers. Call on them as often as high achievers.

· They must be cautious with the material they use materials ensure that it shows a wide range of ethnic groups.

· They should ensure that their teaching does not reflect racial, ethnic or sexual stereotypes or prejudice. For example use a checking system to be sure they call on and include all students. Monitor the content of the tasks they assign. Do boys get the hard math problems to work at the board? Do they avoid having students with limited English give oral presentation?

· The teachers must be fair in evaluation and disciplinary procedures. For example make sure equal offenses receive equal punishment and also try to grade student work without knowing the identity of the student.

· Communicate to all students that you believe they can learn and mean it. For example return papers that do not meet standards with specific suggestions for improvements. If students do not have the answers immediately, wait, probe and then help them think through an answer.

· Involve all students in learning tasks and in privileges. For example use some system to make sure you give each student practice in reading, speaking and answering questions. Keep track of who gets to do what job. Are some students always on the list, whereas others seldom make it?

· Teachers must monitor their nonverbal behaviour. For example do you lean away or stand farther away from some students? Do some students get smiles when they approach their desk, whereas others get only frowns? Does the tone of voice vary with different students?

The above measures could help teachers avoid the negative effects of teacher expectations and treat all the students fairly. Differences in treatment towards low-expectation students may make the students behave accordingly, fulfilling the teachers’ predictions or staying at an expected level of achievement.

We can think of self-fulfilling prophecy as a circular pattern in the sense that our actions towards others will impact their beliefs about us, which dictates or causes their actions towards us, which then reinforces our beliefs about ourselves. This in turn influences our actions towards others, which brings us back to the beginning of the cycle. This pattern can be negative but it can also be positive.

Merton concluded that the only way to break the cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy is by redefining the propositions on which its false assumptions are originally based.

In the same vein teachers having low expectations for some students should go back to the source of their expectations and redefine the propositions on which those expectations are originally based because their low-expectations greatly affect the students’ achievement. The high-achievers might benefit but they could also be subjected to the sustaining expectations.