A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when people's false beliefs shape the behavior of others. For example, if one person is led to believe that another person is unfriendly, he/she may act in such a way to actually elicit unfriendly behavior. Although the self-fulfilling prophecy has historically been characterized as a powerful process capable of producing profound social problems, it is now established that its effects on behavior are modest. However, these modest effects pertain to the power of self-fulfilling prophecies within dyadic relationships. Dyadic relationships may underestimate the true extent to which self-fulfilling prophecies shape behavior because they do not account for the possibility that self-fulfilling prophecy effects may accumulate across people. In a typical day, an individual may interact with many people, each of whom may hold a false belief about that individual, and have a self-fulfilling effect on that individual's behavior. When the false beliefs that different people hold about the same individual are similar, their independent self-fulfilling effects may combine, thereby causing small self-fulfilling prophecy effects to become large. This research will advance knowledge regarding the potential for self-fulfilling prophecy effects to accumulate across people by making the following contributions. First, the experiments will provide the first experimental tests of the accumulation hypothesis, and will examine how accumulation occurs (i.e., whether the effects add up and/or interact with each other). Second, the experiments will examine the accumulation effects of beliefs that are based on personal characteristics (e.g., "According to this personality survey, this person is hostile") and the accumulation effects of beliefs that are based on stereotypes (e.g., "The person in this picture is attractive and therefore sociable as well"). Third, the experiments will manipulate variables that will enable the investigators to address how pervasive the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecy effects are, whether the self-fulfilling effects caused by unfavorable beliefs accumulate across people more than the effects caused by favorable beliefs, and whether individuals' perceptions that others view them in a stereotypic manner influence the accumulation process. Ultimately this line of research may provide insight into the link between self-fulfilling prophecy effects and social problems, such as stereotypes and prejudice. Because stereotypes are shared, it is possible that the individual self-fulfilling effects of different people's stereotype-based beliefs on an individual's behavior accumulate. Indeed, this is one of the ways that self-fulfilling prophecies are thought to contribute to social inequalities. To enhance the broader impact of this research, the investigators will recruit students from under-represented groups, foster students' engagement in the research process, and disseminate the findings broadly.
