This article shows that 35 years of empirical research on teacher expectations justifies the following conclusions: (a) Self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom do occur, but these effects are typically small, they do not accumulate greatly across perceivers or over time, and they may be more likely to dissipate than accumulate; (b) powerful self-fulfilling prophecies may selectively occur among students from stigmatized social groups; (c) whether self-fulfilling prophecies affect intelligence, and whether they in general do more harm than good, remains unclear, and (d) teacher expectations may predict student outcomes more because these expectations are accurate than because they are self-fulfilling. Implications for future research, the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in social problems, and perspectives emphasizing the power of erroneous beliefs to create social reality are discussed.

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Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity -particularly diversity of viewpoints -for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

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In the present research we examined predictions derived from the following three theoretical approaches to stereotyping: complexity-extremity theory, assumed characteristics theory, and expectancy-violation theory. In order to assess these predictions, we manipulated the race, personal appearance, and dialect style of target job applicants. White judges rated these applicants on a set of characteristics relevant to hiring decisions. Results were consistent with all three theories. Specifically, the range of judges' evaluations of black applicants was larger than the range of their evaluations of white applicants; the effects of personal appearance and dialect style were larger than the effects of race; and black applicants, on average, received more favorable ratings than white applicants. We present a model integrating all three perspectives, and we demonstrate its usefulness for explaining our results and for understanding past research on stereotypes.Three theoretical perspectives within social psychology address how stereotypes influence perceptions of individual members of in-groups and out-groups: complexity-extremity theory, assumed characteristics theory, and expectancy-violation theory. Each theory proposes that different processes underlie the impact of background information on evaluations of in-group and out-group members. When considered separately, these theories generate conflicting predictions. Rarely, however, have these theoretical approaches been directly compared with one another. Therefore, in this article we will examine these theories experimentally by investigating how the race, personal appearance, and dialect style of job applicants affects white observers' evaluations.First, we review the basic ideas of each theory to illustrate how they could lead to opposing predictions. For each theory, we generate one set of predictions by assuming that the theory describes the only influences on evaluations. These predictions are useful because they clearly reflect the ideas of each theory. However, researchers from each of these theoretical approaches generally acknowledge the possibility of other influences. Consequently, we also develop a second set of predictions for each theory. These predictions are more realistic and more complex because they reflect how each theory might function in the con-This project was based on work supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship provided to Lee Jussim and by a Spencer Foundation Grant provided to Lerita M. Coleman.We wish to acknowledge Lisa Gibson for her help in collecting the data and

Self-fulfilling prophecies have become a major area of research for social, personality, developmental, and educational psychologists. This article reviews classroom self-fulfilling prophecies in terms of three sequential stages: (a) Teachers develop expectations, (b) teachers treat students differently depending on their expectations, and (c) students react to this treatment in expectancy-confirming ways. The focus of the review is on the social and psychological events occurring at each of these stages, the causal processes linking one stage to the next, and the conditions limiting the occurrence of self-fulfilling prophecies. Finally, it provides a theoretical framework for both understanding past research and guiding future research on self-fulfilling prophecies.

College students (N = 3,435) in 26 cultures reported their perceptions of age-related changes in physical, cognitive, and socioemotional areas of functioning and rated societal views of aging within their culture. There was widespread cross-cultural consensus regarding the expected direction of aging trajectories with (1) perceived declines in societal views of aging, physical attractiveness, the ability to perform everyday tasks, and new learning, (2) perceived increases in wisdom, knowledge, and received respect, and (3) perceived stability in family authority and life satisfaction. Crosscultural variations in aging perceptions were associated with culture-level indicators of population aging, education levels, values, and national character stereotypes. These associations were stronger Löckenhoff et al. Page 3 Psychol Aging. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 September 3. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript for societal views on aging and perceptions of socioemotional changes than for perceptions of physical and cognitive changes. A consideration of culture-level variables also suggested that previously reported differences in aging perceptions between Asian and Western countries may be related to differences in population structure. KeywordsAging; stereotypes; cross-cultural; values; national character stereotypes Perceptions of aging influence societal behaviors and expectations towards older people (e.g., Pasupathi & Löckenhoff, 2002) as well as older adults' well-being and coping with the aging process (e.g. Levy, 2003;Levy & Myers, 2004). The majority of studies in this field have focused on individual differences in perceptions of aging within (mostly Western) cultures, but there is growing evidence that views of aging may differ across cultures as well (e.g., Arnhoff, Leon, & Lorge, 1964;Giles et al., 2000). The present study extends previous research by comparing multiple aspects of aging perceptions across 26 cultures and examining their culture-level associates. To provide the background for this work, we review previous research on intercultural differences in perceptions of aging and discuss theoretical perspectives on the causes of such differences.According to social representations theory (Moscovici, 1984(Moscovici, ,1988) the views of aging held within a given culture are a form of shared cultural representation. They constitute systems of ideas, values, and customs related to aging that are treated by members of the society as if they were established reality. Perceptions of aging are multi-dimensional in nature (e.g., Hummert, 1990), encompass both positive and negative characteristics (e.g., Hummert, 1990;McTavish, 1971;Heckhausen, Dixon, & Baltes, 1989), and reflect a mix between accurate depictions of age-related changes and distorted views of older people (Kite, Stockdale, Whitley, & Johnson, 2005). Healthy aging is associated with predictable biological changes (Digiovanna, 2000) that lead to systematic age differences in physical ...

Hypotheses regarding self-fulfilling prophecies, perceptual biases, and accuracy were tested using longitudinal data relating 98 6th-grade math teachers' expectations to 1,731 students' performance. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted changes in student achievement beyond effects accounted for by previous achievement and motivation. Consistent with the perceptual bias hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted their own evaluations of students' performance more strongly than they predicted standardized test scores. Consistent with the accuracy hypothesis, path coefficients relating teacher expectations to standardized achievement tests were about 80% lower than zero-order correlations, and the path coefficients relating teacher expectations to students' grades were 45% to 65% lower than the zero-order correlations. These results support a weak constructivist perspective.