Imagine a quiet middle school student, James, who had always been told he wasn’t very good at math. Teachers, tutors, and even his parents had repeated the message in different ways—“math just isn’t your thing,” or “don’t worry, not everyone is a numbers person.” His scores had never been that bad, but neither had they been good. 

Over time, James began to believe what he was being told. He stopped asking questions in class and started to dread tests. No matter how much he studied, a voice in the back of his head reminded him it probably wouldn’t make a difference.

When the end-of-term exam came around, James was convinced he would fail before he even sat down. Not seeing the point of even trying, he rushed through problems, skipped the harder ones, and second-guessed himself constantly. He turned in his paper early, not because he was finished, but because he wanted it over with. A week later, his poor grade seemed to confirm what everyone had always said.

James’s apparent lack of talent for maths is a clear example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, the expectations placed on him by those around him directly influenced his behavior. His belief in his own inability became the very reason he underperformed. In this way, a false assumption—reinforced by repeated messages from others—gradually shaped his actions and led to an outcome that seemed to confirm the original (but inaccurate) belief.

In psychological and educational research, the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy is well-documented, particularly in relation to academic achievement, social identity, and motivation. When individuals internalize external judgments, they may unconsciously adjust their behavior to align with those expectations. Over time, these behavioral changes reinforce the original belief, making it appear accurate and objective, when in fact it was shaped by perception rather than fact.

Pygmalion effect: A psychological phenomenon in which higher expectations lead to improved performance. When someone—such as a teacher, manager, or coach—believes in an individual’s potential, they often unknowingly provide more support, attention, and encouragement, which in turn helps the individual perform better, fulfilling the original positive expectation. The term “Pygmalion” comes from Greek mythology, where Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a statue of a woman so beautiful and perfect that he fell in love with it. The goddess Aphrodite granted his wish and brought the statue to life. The myth symbolizes the power of belief and expectation to shape reality.

Stereotype threat: The risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s social group, which can cause anxiety and lead to reduced performance in situations where the stereotype is relevant.

False belief: A conviction or assumption that is incorrect or not supported by facts, yet is accepted as true by an individual or group. False beliefs can influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, sometimes leading to real-world consequences despite their inaccuracy.

Clever Hans effect: A situation where a subject appears to perform a cognitive task but is actually responding to subtle, unintentional cues from another person rather than understanding the task itself.

Predictive policing: The use of data analysis, algorithms, and machine learning to forecast where crimes are likely to occur or who might be involved in criminal activity, with the goal of preventing crime before it happens.

The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy was first coined by American psychologist Robert K. Merton in 1948. His original definition of the term was “a false definition of the situation evolving a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true.”¹ To illustrate this concept, Merton referred to bank runs (which happened a lot during the Great Depression). These start when rumors spread about a local bank that is going to file for bankruptcy. Such rumors cause customers to rush to the bank to close their accounts and protect their money, but because banks do not keep their total assets in cash, the bank cannot fulfill all the withdrawals. As a result, the original prophecy that the bank would go bankrupt came true. 

Although Merton officially coined the term, the phenomenon had been documented many years prior. In his book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1781 and1789, Edward Gibbons writes that “during the many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment.”² Gibbons was referring to the prophecies about the downfall of the Roman Empire, and the belief that Rome would eventually fall. 

Merton himself based his description of the self-fulfilling prophecy on an earlier concept called the Thomas Theorem.¹ In 1928, sociologists William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas developed the ‘Thomas Theorem,” which states that what people believe to be true influences how they act, regardless of whether that belief is factually accurate or not.³ The Thomases originally developed the theory in relation to behavioral problems among youth in American society, and how individuals perceive and react to their social environment. For example, if a young person believes they are being treated unfairly by authority figures—even if that belief is mistaken—they may act out or disengage. 

Early empirical research on self-fulfilling prophecies focused mainly on education. One of the most well-known studies was conducted by psychologist Robert Rosenthal and elementary school principal Lenore Jacobson in 1968, demonstrating the Pygmalion Effect, also known as the Rosenthal Effect.⁴ The concept explains that students tend to perform in line with their teachers’ expectations: high expectations lead to improved performance, while lower expectations lead to poorer performance. 

In the study, elementary school teachers were told that certain randomly selected students had shown unusual potential for intellectual growth. These students—labeled as “bloomers”—were not actually any different from their peers in ability, but the teachers believed they were. By the end of the school year, the so-called bloomers had made significantly greater gains in IQ and academic performance than other students. The bloomers gained an average of 12 IQ points, while the rest of the students gained about 8 IQ points. The difference was even more pronounced in the younger grades, where some of the bloomers showed IQ increases of up to 27 points.

What changed was not the students’ ability, but the way in which their teachers interacted with them. In other words, the teachers’ belief in the students’ potential led to behaviors that helped bring out that potential. 

Following Rosenthal and Jacobson’s pioneering work, other researchers started to explore the effect further. Joseph Brophy and Thomas Good, for example, delved deeper into how teacher behavior could influence student outcomes.⁵ Based on systematic classroom observations across elementary schools, Brophy and Good found that teachers unconsciously gave more time, praise, and detailed feedback to students they believed were high-achieving.

In more recent decades, research on self-fulfilling prophecy has expanded beyond education into areas such as health, workplace dynamics, social identity, and criminal justice. Researchers like Lee Jussim have further refined the theory, showing that self-fulfilling prophecies are most likely to occur when expectations are inaccurate or influenced by stereotypes.⁶ These effects can be especially harmful when embedded in institutional systems, such as biased hiring practices or predictive policing models.

Robert K. Merton

American sociologist best known for his work on social structure, deviance, and the sociology of science. He coined key concepts such as the self-fulfilling prophecy, role model, and unintended consequences, shaping much of modern sociological theory and research.

William Isaac Thomas

One of the founding figures of symbolic interactionism, he is best known for developing the Thomas theorem along with fellow sociologist Dorothy Swaine Thomas, a principle highlighting the power of perception in shaping social reality.

Dorothy Swaine Thomas

Sociologist, demographer, and the first female president of the American Sociological Association, she is known for her pioneering work in population studies and social statistics. She co-developed the Thomas Theorem with William Isaac Thomas.

Robert Rosenthal

American psychologist best known for his research on expectancy effects and the Pygmalion Effect in education. His work demonstrated how teachers’ expectations can influence student performance, helping to establish the self-fulfilling prophecy as a central concept in social and educational psychology.

Leonore Jacobson

Working as an American elementary school principal, she collaborated with Robert Rosenthal on the landmark Pygmalion in the Classroom study. Her practical insights and access to a real school setting were crucial to demonstrating how teacher expectations could influence student IQ and academic growth, helping to validate the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy in education.

Clever Hans

A horse who lived in early 20th-century Germany that appeared to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks by tapping his hoof to indicate answers. However, psychologist Oskar Pfungst discovered that Hans wasn’t solving problems, but was instead responding to subtle, unconscious cues from human observers. This effect, now known as the Clever Hans Effect, illustrates how expectations and nonverbal signals can influence behavior without intentional prompting.

The self-fulfilling prophecy can shape outcomes in both constructive and harmful ways. While it can lead to positive results, such as improved performance when individuals are expected to succeed, it can also reinforce negative outcomes—including failure, discrimination, and conflict—when based on false or biased assumptions.

Stereotypes and academic performance

Stereotypes serve as powerful triggers for self-fulfilling prophecies in the context of education. When people are subjected to false or harmful generalizations—such as assumptions about intelligence based on race—they may unconsciously internalize these expectations, shaping their behavior in ways that make the stereotypes appear “true.” For instance, African American students have historically scored lower on standardized tests like the SAT,⁷ a fact which has been misinterpreted as evidence of lower intelligence rather than a reflection of broader social and psychological dynamics. Research has shown that “stereotype threat”—the anxiety of potentially confirming a negative stereotype—can impair cognitive performance.⁸ As Jayanti Owens and Douglas Massey from Princeton University argue, students from stigmatized groups internalize negative stereotypes, bringing about disidentification and a reduction in academic effort.⁹ Furthermore, these students often feel intense pressure not to fail, knowing that their poor outcomes may be seen as living up to negative group stereotypes.²² This stress can interfere with concentration, memory, and problem-solving abilities, leading to the very underperformance the stereotype predicted—thus fulfilling a prophecy that was never true to begin with.

A cause for war?

American psychologist Gordon Allport believed that self-fulfilling prophecy could be a cause for war.¹⁰ If one country (A) assumes that another country (B) is preparing for war, it may begin to arm itself in response, intending to act defensively. However, this military build-up can be perceived by country B as an act of aggression, prompting it to increase its own defenses. This mutual escalation, driven by misinterpretation and fear rather than actual hostile intent, can ultimately lead to conflict, despite the fact that the original assumption had no factual basis.

A real-world example of this (almost) self-fulfilling prophecy is the Cold War. Both the U.S. and the USSR believed the other posed a significant threat, particularly in terms of nuclear capability and ideological expansion. These assumptions led each side to build up massive stockpiles of weapons, especially nuclear arms, not necessarily with the intent to launch an attack, but to deter the other from doing so. However, each round of military buildup by one side was interpreted by the other as preparation for war. 

In this case, the original fear that the other side was preparing to strike was not necessarily based on actual plans of aggression. However, the belief itself triggered actions that made conflict increasingly likely. Thankfully, as the history books tell, a full-scale war never materialized. 

Panic buying

Anyone who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic will remember the panic buying that immediately erupted as news broke that the virus was spreading.¹¹ Around the globe, people flocked to supermarkets to stock up on essential items, most notably: toilet paper. 

But what people didn’t stop to consider was the fact that the supermarkets had enough for everyone, and then some. The idea that basic necessities such as toilet paper, flour, and pasta would immediately run out was a false belief. Yet as this belief quickly spread, these items quickly flew off the shelves, creating an actual shortage.  

Although the initial assumption that staple items would be in short supply was untrue, this fear prompted behavior that made the feared outcome real. As Victor Claar, an Associate Professor of Economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, points out, “if you expect a shortage, you will get one.”¹² This basic premise of economics demonstrates how human behavior can influence social reality, regardless of supply chains. 

The Pygmalion Effect has come under increasing scrutiny in recent decades, with issues around accuracy, replicability, and methodological rigor. Furthermore, the issue of agency in self-fulfilling prophecy has become a topic of contention, with some arguing that the concept undermines people’s ability to act independently of others’ expectations. 

Accuracy

Rosenthal and Jacobson’s work on the Pygmalion effect has come under scrutiny for its methodological rigor. Social psychologist Lee Jussim criticizes the study’s lack of control over confounding variables and unclear causal mechanisms.¹³ In particular, he notes that the study did not systematically document how teachers actually treated the students labeled as “bloomers”, making it difficult to determine what behaviors—if any—changed in response to the manipulated expectations. 

In naturalistic educational environments, many other variables are at play, including curriculum quality, peer effects, and family support. In reality, the impact of teacher expectations tends to be much smaller than initially thought. 

Replicability

Although early studies on self-fulfilling prophecies in education sparked widespread interest in the power of teacher expectations, subsequent attempts to replicate these effects in more naturalistic settings have often produced weaker or inconsistent results. Lee Jussim and Kent Harber from Rutgers University in the United States reviewed decades of research and found that many studies trying to replicate Rosenthal and Jacobson’s original findings reported smaller or even negligible effects.¹⁴ This was especially true when experiments introduced more rigorous controls or took place in real-world classroom settings rather than under lab conditions.

One key factor appears to be whether teachers are aware of their expectations and whether those expectations are based on objective indicators (such as prior achievement) versus false or misleading cues. When teachers’ expectations align with students’ actual ability levels, they are more likely to reflect reality than to shape it. In contrast, when expectations are artificially manipulated, as in Rosenthal and Jacobson’s original study, their influence may be exaggerated due to the experimental context.

Agency

A significant body of evidence now shows that individuals are not passive recipients of others’ expectations. While early self-fulfilling prophecy research emphasized the power of external beliefs to shape behavior, scholars such as Lee Jussim now highlight the active role people play in interpreting and responding to expectations.¹³ People often possess their own motivations, goals, and self-concepts that can soften or even counteract the influence of false beliefs imposed by others. For example, a student who is wrongly perceived as underachieving may nevertheless perform well if they are internally motivated, confident, or supported by a strong peer or family network. Quite the contrary, negative expectations can actually be a strong motivating factor and push people to prove other people wrong. 

Clever Hans

In 1895, one of the world’s greatest intellectuals was born. Dark-haired and slender-legged, Clever Hans’s ability to complete arithmetic, literary, and musical tasks astounded audiences across Germany and Europe. You may have an image of a handsome academic in your mind. Yet this German polyglot was not a human, but a horse. 

Trained by Wilhelm von Osten, Hans was believed to perform arithmetic, read German, spell words, differentiate between musical tones, and even understand complex questions—all by tapping his hoof to “answer.” In 1904, The New York Times published an article on ‘Berlin’s Wonderful Horse,’ reporting to the world that the animal could ‘do almost everything but talk.’¹⁵ When a panel of scientists tested him and found no evidence of deliberate trickery from von Osten, it appeared that Hans truly possessed remarkable cognitive skills. Interest in animal intelligence was rife at this time, largely thanks to Charles Darwin’s work on animal behavior and evolution, and everyone believed that Clever Hans possessed remarkable cognitive skills. 

It was Oscar Pfungst who eventually uncovered the disappointing truth about the world-famous equid. He found that Hans couldn’t respond correctly if the person asking the question didn’t know the answer, or if a screen was placed between him and the questioner.¹⁶ Why? Hans wasn’t any brighter than the next horse, and he was just responding to cues. When someone posed a question to Hans, they would instinctively glance at his hoof while awaiting his response. As he neared the correct number of taps, the person’s body language—such as a slight upward shift of the eyes or head—would subtly change in anticipation. Over time, Hans learned to interpret these minute signals as cues to stop tapping, which often led him to produce the right answer.¹⁷

The story of this not-so-remarkable horse gave rise to what’s known as the ‘Clever Hans Effect.’ This phenomenon occurs when an animal or human appears to perform a cognitive task or give correct responses, not because they understand the task, but because they are responding to subtle, unintentional cues given by another person. This often happens without the other person realizing it.

Since the early 20th century, the Clever Hans Effect has been witnessed in other animals, most notably sniffer dogs searching for drugs, explosives, or other dangers.¹⁸ Research has shown that these working dogs can be highly susceptible to unintentional cues from their handlers. For instance, when handlers believe there is a scent or target present, their subtle changes in body language—such as posture, eye movement, or tension—can unintentionally lead the dog to falsely alert. In a study conducted by Lisa Lit and her team at the University of California, Davis, teams of dog-handler pairs were tested in search scenarios where no contraband was actually present.¹⁹ The handlers were intentionally misinformed about the presence of up to three target scents, with markers indicating the position of the scent present in two of the experimental conditions. Despite the absence of target scents, the dogs falsely alerted in a staggering number of cases (225 to be precise), especially when handlers believed there were substances to be found. 

The Clever Hans Effect has even influenced the way in which animal behavior studies and human experiments are now conducted. Although not always applied rigorously, experimenters now strictly avoid any face-to-face contact with animals to avoid giving away any unintentional cues.¹⁶ Similarly, in human trials of experimental drugs, we use double-blind studies where patients do not know whether they are getting medicine or a placebo, and neither does the doctor. This avoids any unintentional transmission of expectations from researchers to patient.²¹

Predictive policing

For the past three decades or so, predictive policing has been helping law enforcement to forecast where crimes are more likely to occur, when they might happen, and who is most likely to be involved. Police departments use historical crime data and other variables to help formulate these predictions and use this information to better allocate resources and ultimately prevent crime.

However, research suggests that predictive policing, particularly when applied to young people, may unintentionally lead to the criminal behavior it’s trying to prevent. In Pasco County, Florida, police use data from schools, child welfare, and justice systems to label youth as “at risk” of becoming criminals.²⁰ Predictive policing algorithms that use machine learning can end up treating people unfairly based on race because they are trained on data from a criminal justice system that already contains racial bias.

Once labeled, these children are subjected to frequent police surveillance, including unannounced home visits. In qualitative research conducted by lawyer Nadia Rossbach, officers admitted to going out of their way to find petty code violations at the juvenile’s house, including having grass too long or unnumbered properties. 

Gathering evidence from case studies in the Pasco County predictive policing program, existing psychological and sociological research, and other resources on juvenile justice, Rossbach argues that these programs are plagued by inaccuracies and racial and socio-economic biases. For the young people in Pasco County, Rossbach believes that the “at-risk” label altered how these children were treated and perceived—both by police and themselves—which in turn, increased the likelihood of future offending.

Do High-Potential Employee Programs Work?

Intended to nurture future leaders, “high-potential” employee programs use the Pygmalion Effect to drive motivation. This article explores the hidden pitfalls of these schemes, showing how they can unintentionally create self-fulfilling prophecies, workplace bias, and disengagement. 

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Internet Outrage

This article examines how online outrage can spiral into a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the expectation of bad behavior online leads users to act more aggressively or defensively, ultimately creating the toxic environment they feared. Drawing from psychology and social behavior, Kaya Foster explores how digital platforms amplify these dynamics and what can be done to break the cycle.

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