self fulfilling prophecy to explain crime

Question 1

what is the self fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 1

• people fulfil the expectations of others and become what others think and say that they will become

Question 2

what are the 4 stages that lead to self fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 2

• deviant action to elicit label or can start due to labelling
• new behaviour that is affected by label
• positive feedback = attention is reinforcing
• label becomes true and the behaviour now matches the label

Question 3

what is the Pygmalion effect and the study of rosenthal to support this?

Answer 3

• high expectations lead to improved performance
• told school teachers that some students were ‘late bloomers’, children treated differently and positive expectations affected the performance (late bloomers performed worse)

Question 4

what is the self defeating prophecy?

Answer 4

• if someone is given a negative or positive label and get negative feedback they may not want to fulfil the label and instead do the opposite

Question 5

what is an issue in terms of ethics and demand characteristics for rosenthal’s study with late bloomers?

Answer 5

• unethical - those not labelled as late bloomers have an affected education
• demand characteristics = feel like they have to do something with the information given

Question 6

what is the study of madon et al?

Answer 6

• questioned 115 children and their parents, asked to guess amount of alcohol their child would drink in the upcoming year
• children then asked after a year how much they actually drank
• children who drank most alcohol were the ones who’s parents negatively labelled them

Question 7

what is an issue with the study of madon et al in terms of data gathered?

Answer 7

• data = self report
• could show social desirability saying they either drank more/ less than they actually did

Question 8

what are the practical applications of the theory?

Answer 8

• shows the importance of labels
• should help criminals back into society

Question 9

why is the theory reductionist?

Answer 9

• doesn’t consider any biological explanations of crime e.g. brain injuries

Question 10

what is the opposing study of fuller?

Answer 10

• group of black girls studied
• girls resented the negative labels given to them and so decided to prove them wrong

Question 11

what is an issue with cause and effect?

Answer 11

• correlational data so there may be a third variable impacting behaviour