The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Rosenthal & Jacobson

Question 1

What is Rosenthal and Jacobson study?

Answer 1

study of Oak community school, a Californian primary school, showed the self fulfilling prophecy at work

Question 2

What did Rosenthal and Jacobson do?

Answer 2

• they told the school that they had a new test specifically designed to identify those pupils who would spurt ahead
• this was untrue because the test was a simple IQ test but the teachers believed what they had been told
• the researchers selected 20% at random and told the school they identified them as ‘Spurters’

Question 3

What did Rosenthal and Jacobson find 1 year later?

Answer 3

• 47% of those identified as spurters had made significant progress and the effect was greater on young children
• they suggested that the teachers belief about the pupils had been influenced by the supposed test results and conveyed these beliefs to the pupils through the way they interacted with them

Question 4

what does the fact that the children were selected at random suggest from the findings?

Answer 4

if a teacher believes a pupil to be a certain type, they can actually make him or her into that they

Question 5

What does the study’s finding illustrate?

Answer 5

an important interactionist principle: that what people believe to be true will have real effects - even if the belief was not true originally

Question 6

What can the self fulfilling prophecy produce?

Answer 6

under achievement as if teachers have low expectations of certain children and communicate these expectations in their interaction, these children may develop a negative self-concept and they may come to see themselves as failures and give up trying, thereby fulfilling the prophecy