Effect of Target's Sex on Manipulations of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Abstract

Rosenthal and Jacobson outlined the results of their research concerning the Pygmalion phenomenon in 1968. Since that time, research in the field of the Pygmalion effect and, more generally, self-fulfilling prophecy has flourished. The process of self-fulfilling prophecy involves a target individual interpreting a source individual's often nonverbal expectations, internalizing those expectations, and then behaving in accordance with those expectations. Some have suggested that female targets are less likely than male targets to be influenced by such treatments despite the fact that females are generally superior at nonverbal decoding of other's expectations. Other research has shown, however, that female targets are less confident of their interpretation of nonverbal cues and are less likely to conform blindly to other's expectations than are male targets This paper reports a test of the hypothesis that female targets require a source of greater credibility than males to elicit a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. 100 undergraduate volunteers completed a mock predictive test of analytic abilities, and each received uniformly positive feedback concerning his performance. Each then competed against a computer at a simulated card game to provide another measure of analytic abilities. The game score and time on task indicated that female targets, unlike males, performed better at the card game when they were led to believe that the predictive test was constructed by a highly credible individual than by a less credible one.