Chapter 14. Do Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Accumulate or Dissipate?

Abstract

    This chapter reviews theory and data regarding the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecies over time and across perceivers.  The theoretical case for powerfully accumulating self-fulfilling prophecies (described in depth here) often seems so obvious and compelling that data are not even needed to test it – until the theoretical case for dissipating self-fulfilling prophecies is described in similar depth.  Given that these opposite claims appear highly compelling, whether self-fulfilling prophecies accumulate or dissipate can only be resolved by data, not by theoretical analysis.  In classrooms, the data are vividly clear: self-fulfilling prophecies do not accumulate over time.  Instead, they dissipate.  Concurrent accumulation (across perceivers) in classrooms most likely does occur.  This chapter shows why, perhaps surprisingly, the generally highly limited self-fulfilling prophecy effects found in existing research likely constitutes an upper limit of how much concurrent accumulation actually happens.  The handful of studies assessing accumulation outside of classrooms have yielded suggestive but inconsistent results from which no broad and general conclusions can yet be reached.  Although one can tell a compelling story about how the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecy upon self-fulfilling prophecy constitutes a major mechanism by which social stereotypes confirm themselves and maintain unjustified systems of oppression and status, there is, in fact, currently no clear evidence supporting such an analysis, and a great deal of evidence against it.

EXCERPT:
There might be some conditions under which teacher expectation effects accumulate to create large, enduring differences between students.  Such conditions, however, have not yet been found.  Despite arguments and claims emphasizing the power of expectancy effects to accumulate, there is no evidence of powerful accumulation effects in the classroom.
Concurrent accumulation [of self-fulfilling prophecy effects produced by multiple perceivers’ expectations during the same time period] most likely occurs, at least sometimes.  … despite the initially compelling appeal of arguments for the concurrent accumulation hypothesis, naturalistic studies of dyadic teacher-student interactions, which typically show expectancy effects of .1-.2 (see Chapters 3 and 13), do not underestimate concurrent accumulation.  Instead, they precisely capture the overall extent of accumulation across different teachers during the time period covered by those studies.  Concurrent accumulation effects in the classroom are, therefore, on average quite small.
…accumulation over time … in the classroom … does not happen.  Four studies have directly addressed this issue (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Rist, 1970; Smith, et al., 1999; West & Anderson, 1976).  None found evidence of accumulation.  All found at least some evidence that self-fulfilling prophecies dissipate…
Outside the classroom, the evidence on accumulation is still preliminary and suggestive.