Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Good Essays
575 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy This experiment is all about prejudices, stereotyping and self-fulfilling prophecy. Jane Elliot was trying to demonstrate to a class of 3rd graders how it felt to be discriminated against, judged and made fun of. This all took place the day after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in a small Iowa town. The children felt inferior while in the oppressed group because they were told they were lazy, dirty, not smart, can 't remember things, and would never amount to anything great. Causing them to feel less important, that maybe they really weren 't smart because that is what is being told to them and that is how they are being treated. For someone to be treated like that, for any reason, causes that person to think, "Well, maybe that is true," untimely making them doubt themselves and really feel inferior. These children got to learn first hand just how harsh it is to be the center of discrimination and prejudices. Since people prejudge others based on their external features, society has created stereotypes in which people are assumed to look and act in a certain manner. Stereotypes and prejudices can color our judgments of others at an unconscious level and create a negative evaluation of others based solely on what group they may belong or what color they are. Stereotypes limit our vision of others, they are always potential dangers. For example, Police officers are also more likely to pull over black drivers in expensive cars than white people in expensive cars. However, not everyone recognizes this in their behavior.
The fundamental attribution error plays a role in this because, the error is made by people in which they attribute someone else 's behavior more to their personality and characteristic then to the situation in which they have been placed. In reality, someone 's behavior is actually more likely to be caused by the environment and situation that they have been placed in as opposed to their personality.
The self-fulfilling prophecy explains how one 's expectations about another person will eventually lead that person to behave in ways that would confirm these expectations. For example, the kids in Jane Elliot 's experiment, the ones that were told they were dirty, not good enough, not smart enough etc… started behaving as if they were all of those things. Therefore, a negative comment and expectation could arouse a negative view of oneself which may lower the self-esteem. For example, if a person were to make a comment that I was irresponsible and expected me to not handle my tasks responsibly; I would then confirm these expectations by acting irresponsibly. By confirming these expectations and behaving in that manner, I am more likely to hold a more negative view of myself which would in turn lower my self-esteem.
When people hold a large number of negative stereotypes about certain groups (or people), then they may be more likely to feel negative about themselves. Also, the self-fulfilling prophecy talks about behaving in ways that would confirm people 's expectations, making that group (or person) more susceptible to having low self-esteem if they easily confirm those expectations. References
Peplau, L. A., Sears, D. O., & Taylor, S. E. (2006). 1. L. Jewell, Ed. Cognitive Theories (12 ed). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Bloom, S. G. (2005, September). Lesson of a Lifetime. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from www.smithsonianmag.com

References: Peplau, L. A., Sears, D. O., & Taylor, S. E. (2006). 1. L. Jewell, Ed. Cognitive Theories (12 ed). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. Bloom, S. G. (2005, September). Lesson of a Lifetime. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved March 25, 2007, from www.smithsonianmag.com

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The effects that this situation generated in terms of how the children’s self esteem was when wearing the collar. The collars when worn by either the blue eyed or the brown eyed students made them have a much lower self esteem as compared to the other group of students. This is because as individuals the students felt as if they were less superior and discriminated against. The affect a certain prejudice that is placed upon not only children but everyone will have an astounding affect.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prejudice in its negative uses can cause multiple types of harm to an individual. It can affect how other’s see them, how they act towards others, and what they are given the chance to do. Prejudice is complicated in the fact that it is difficult for people “to dismiss their existing categorical beliefs” about certain races, sexes, intelligence level, etc. (Cherry 1). Once a group or individual is placed in its stereotype, people cannot seem to believe anything else. Feelings of prejudice are constant; they will likely not…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Reading Philosophies

    • 2146 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Bruning, R.H., Schraw, G.J. & Ronning, R.R (1995). Cognitive psychology and instruction, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.…

    • 2146 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Cognitive Dissonance Paper

    • 1169 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Malle, B.F. (2011). Attribution Theories: How People Make Sense of Behavior, In Chadee, D. (Ed).Theories in Social Psychology.Wiley-Blackwell.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Self-fulfilling prophecy is an idea that becomes true when acted upon. There are some self-fulfilling prophecy situations that can be either positive or negative. An example of a positive situation is for example, I am going to a party, I know that I will not know most people going there, and I plan to make new friends. I know that I am good with people and social, so I am more likely to outgoing, engaging, and less likely to take a cold shoulder personally. Consequently, people will probably react amiably to my openness and I will definitely make new friends. On the other hand there are also negative self-fulfilling prophecy situations, for example, if I am a high school soccer coach and I believe that the freshman will be less skilled and…

    • 253 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    people to explain behavior in terms of individual personality traits, even when significant situational factors in the larger society are at work.…

    • 4386 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever had an assumption or belief about someone come true? That is what defines a Self-fulfilling Prophesy. That is, when a person’s expectations, thoughts, or beliefs manifest in such a way that in return they become true. These preconceived notions about other people influence how you act toward them and in return this will evoke a response from that person. This response then provides proof of the original expectations.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Fundamental Attribution Error refers to the tendency to over estimate the internal and underestimates the external factors when explaining the behaviors of others. This may be a result of our tendency to pay more attention to the situation rather than to the individual, and is especially true when we know little about the other person.…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fundamental attribution error a more common name for the correspondence bias is defined as the tendency of people to make dispositional attributions for others behaviors. (Duff, 2012) For example, if a cashier failed to smile at you while checking out at the store, you might assume that they are just miserable and rude. You wouldn’t take anything else into consideration. You’d be judging their behavior based “who they are” rather than taking situational factors into consideration.…

    • 1937 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2. The fundamental attribution error is that we tend to overestimate a person’s natural personality and underestimate the position that they’re in.…

    • 5344 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    stereotyping

    • 1347 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Stereotypes are qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, and sexual orientation, to name a few. There are negative race-based stereotypes and positive race-based stereotypes. Nevertheless, because they generalize groups of people in manners that lead to discrimination and ignore the diversity within groups, stereotypes should be avoided. Instead, judge individuals based on your personal…

    • 1347 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An example of the fundamental attribution error is Ross et al. (1977). In this study, the participants were assigned one of three roles: a game show host, a game show contestant or a part of the audience. The game show hosts were instructed to design their own questions that they would ask the contestants. The aim of this study was to see if the participants would make the fundamental attribution error (overestimate the role of dispositional factors, and underestimate the situational factors), despite the fact that they knew all the participants of the experiment were simply playing a role. The result of this study was that when the observers were asked to rank the participants in terms of intelligence, they consistently ranked the game show hosts as being the most intelligent, despite the fact that they knew that this person was randomly assigned to this position, and that this person had also written the questions. The observers attributed the person’s performance to dispositional factors…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fundamental attribution error is a term used to refer to a bias to attribute other people’s behaviour to internal causes rather than external circumstances. If people behave kindly towards us with a warm gesture we immediately assume and conclude that they have a kind personality whilst if they behave in ways that seem impolite to us (perhaps not greet us at all) we tend to think of them as rude. Instead of acknowledging the important role played by situational determinants of behaviour, we assume that other people’s behaviour reflects their dispositions.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Attribution

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the textbook Social Psychology the fundamental attribution error is defined as “the tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situation on other people’s behavior (107).” This is a concise definition, describing a person’s habit of judging conduct on personality. The theory is also known as correspondence bias because of the corresponding link it emphasizes between character and behaviors. Along with being very common, the fundamental attribution error has been shown to be very pervasive. Even in experiments where participants are made aware of the fundamental attribution error or the situation before asking to describe something about a person, they tend to make the same type of error.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    self fulfilling prophecy

    • 3496 Words
    • 14 Pages

    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'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.…

    • 3496 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays