The accumulation of stereotype-based self-fulfilling prophecies

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2018

Abstract

In the article “The Accumulation of Stereotype-Based Self-Fulfilling Prophecies” by Stephanie Madon, Lee Jussim, Max Guyll, Heather Nofziger, Elizabeth R. Salib, Jennifer Willard, and Kyle C. Scherr (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018, Vol. 115, No. 5, pp. 825–844. doi: 10.1037/pspi0000142), three errors occurred due to printer errors. The last sentence in the Type I Error section should read as follows: Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine the effect of experimental factors on multiple dependent variables of the same underlying construct. The second sentence of the Profile subsection of Experiment 1 should read as follows: The profile always described the target as female, European American, 21 years old, “between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches tall,” and as having a constellation of personality traits that was held constant. The third sentence in the Accumulation subsection of Experiment 1 should read as follows: In the current data, for example, it was possible that the signal communicated by the situational affordances was too weak to elicit a self-fulfilling effect when only the expectations of individual perceivers were considered, in which case targets might have ignored or discounted the signal. The online version of this article has been corrected.] A recurring theme in the psychological literature is that the self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes can accumulate across perceivers. This article provides the first empirical support for this long-standing hypothesis. In three experiments (Ns = 123–241), targets more strongly confirmed a stereotype as the number of perceivers who held stereotypic expectations about them increased. A fourth experiment (N = 121) showed that new perceivers judged targets according to the stereotypic behaviors they had previously been channeled to adopt, an effect that even occurred among perceivers who were privy to the fact that targets’ behavior had been shaped by the actions of others. The authors discuss ways in which these effects may contribute to group inequalities.

Journal Title

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Journal ISSN

0022-3514

Volume

115

Issue

5

First Page

825

Last Page

844

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1037/pspi0000142

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