The present review investigates factors that predict three processes that lead to persistence versus change of expectations after confrontation with expectation violations, based on the violated expectation (ViolEx) model and related models. We address four groups of predictors: (a) characteristics of the expectation, (b) characteristics of the expectation-violating event(s), (c) broader situational characteristics, and (d) personality characteristics. The bulk of studies conducted in this area looked at expectation change in the direction of the experienced violation (accommodation) as their central dependent variable. The strongest empirical support was found for accommodation being less likely and minimizing of the potential impact of the discrepant information (immunization) being more likely to occur (a) after the reality turns out to be worse rather than better than expected, (b) if disconfirming events are more ambiguous, and (c) if depressed rather than healthy people are confronted with better-than-expected events. Given the high heterogeneity between studies on assessed predictors, we recommend a more comprehensive and unifying approach that tests the relative impact and the interplay of the whole range of predictors across paradigms.
Data from the U.S. and Canada indicate that students’ educational expectations are often unrealistically high. Thus, the present meta-analysis tested whether students tend to decrease, on average, their educational expectations from childhood to emerging adulthood. A systematic search in the electronic databases ERIC, PsycInfo, PSYNDEX, and Web of Science identified 91 longitudinal studies the results of which were integrated with multi-level meta-analysis. While expectations about the highest future educational degree showed very small declines per year (of g = -.02 standard deviation units), the mean yearly decline of expectations about future grades was estimated to be g = -.73. Moderator analysis found a decline in expectations about the final degree only in studies from the U.S. and Canada—countries with the highest gap between expectation and future educational attainment. In addition, change in expectations about the final degree varied by age, with the strongest decline being observed around the age of 20 years. We conclude that positive expectations about the final educational attainment often tend to persist over longer intervals probably due to lacking strong counter-evidence and because of indicating a desirable outcome.
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