Who is susceptible?

We are all susceptible to become victims of negative self-fulfilling prophecies. However, social groups that already experience and encounter negative stereotypes become more susceptible than other social groups who do not face negative stereotypes.

These social groups are more susceptible to the degree that they are more likely to encounter inaccurate and negative expectations about their academic potential, have less opportunity to correct others' perceptions over time, and must repeatedly confront this situation.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

According to the article, The Potential Roles of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, Stigma Consciousness, and Stereotype Threat in Linking Latino/a Ethnicity and Educational Outcomes; "A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a perceiver's false belief influences the perceiver's treatment of a target which, in turn, shapes the target's behavior in an expectancy-consistent manner"

Self-fulfilling prophecy is a three step process.

1. First a perceiver must hold a false belief about a target, like when a teacher underestimates a student's true potential

2. Then, the perceiver must treat the target in a manner that is consistent with the false belief, such as if a teacher presents easier material to low-expectancy students

3. Finally, the target must confirm the originally false belief, as when a low-expectancy student underperforms

Jane Elliot's 3rd grade class; Self-fulfilling prophecy

In 1970, Jane Elliot addressed discrimination through her 3^rd grade class. She divided them into two groups: Those with brown eyes and those with blue eyes. On the first day she told the blue eyed children they were superior – she explained all of the positive qualities of blue eyed people and all of the negative qualities of brown eyed people. She even made the brown eyed children wear collars so that they would be more easily identified. She repeated the exact same process the next day with the same children, only their roles were reversed. In those two days, the children's abilities had shown through their statuses.

The blue eyed children completed an exercise the first day, when they believed they were inferior, in 5 ½ minutes; On the second day they completed it in 2 ½ minutes. The brown eyed children's time went from 3 minutes on the superior day, to 4:18 on the inferior.

(The following links are to the follow up experiment done a decade later with adults)
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6