OGUNLADE, PHIBEAN OLATUNDE
REG. NO: 2012/4018
COURSE: SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
COURSE CODE: EFC 705
COURSE LECTURER: DR A.O. K. NOAH
What is Self Fulfilling Prophecy and how does it affect educational outcome?
INTRODUCTION
Robert K. Merton (1910 – 2003) Professor of sociology invented the word self fulfilling prophecy to help make tangible and popular the idea that some pronouncement or statement positive or negative can alter peoples action to bring about fulfillment of same pronouncement. It is, however a tragedy of human nature and experience that negative thoughts, ideas statements and actions bond more easily than positive ones. The word self fulfilling prophecy conveys an impression of a prophecy/statement that alters action
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But once depositors had defined the situation otherwise, once they questioned the possibility of having these promises fulfilled, the consequences of this unreal definition were real enough.
For Merton, therefore, so common is the pattern of the self fulfilling prophecy that it has a way it applies to individual and to everyone situation. The conclusion of an observation or perception of a situation develops into a belief that spurs corresponding behaviour whether positive or negative and actions that eventually lead to fulfillment of the prophetic declaration. A typical Nigerian situation where a man drives into his regular and favoured petrol/gas filling station and was told that the station is out of fuel or long queues observed. He perceives the situation as scarcity of fuel and spreads the news. Before long the situation is defined as such, provokes panic buying of fuel from other filling stations. This leads to unscrupulous hoarding and further panic buying of the commodity7 and an artificial scarcity is created eventually. The prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning. A rumoured situation if not dismissed becomes a real situation.8 A lady that loves a guy and believes that by marrying him they will make a good couple. Whatever happens in the marriage owing to her belief the marriage will last. The general notion that men cheat
Yes, you can apply self-fulfilling prophecies to this video, “self-fulfilling prophecies occurs when a person's expectation of an event affects his or her behavior and therefore makes the predicted outcome more likely to occur than would
Self-fulfilling prophecy is described as any expectation, whether it is positive or negative, about a situation or occurrence that influences an individual’s behavior in such a way that it provides reason that the expectation is to be achieved. While I am employed in an educational setting, an educator may possibly give an expectation of a student being disruptive and ill-mannered. I work with behavioral special education students would have a tendency to disrupt class.
The social-psychological principle that is relevant to this scene is self-fulfilling prophecies. The definition of self-fulfilling prophecy is “the observation that expectations about the future tend to come true due to the fact that our expectations affect what we think, say, and do and those actions affect the outcome of events and situations”. Robert Merton describes self-fulfilling prophecies as the situation where we end up labeling others, and through this we actually influence their action, and they eventually become
George Mead and W.E.B Du Bois were both prominent American sociologists of the 20th century. Mead is known as one of the founders of social psychology and symbolic interactionism. Du Bois was also a historian, civil rights activist, author, writer, and editor. Both of them became renowned pragmatists, after years of writing articles, reviews, essays and books on philosophical topics. One of Mead’s popular theories is his theory on the social construction of self. One of Du Bois’s popular theories’ is one about double consciousness. Although, racism was the main target of Du Bois's’ polemics, both of their ideas of “self” are roughly the same. Their ideas share a common ground.
6). The reason for this is that the sociologists believed that “humans do not have any free will” (Thio, 2010, p. 7) and were unable to change what the future held for them.
The forth concept is “self fulfilling prophecies”. “Self fulfilling prophecies” means that a dominant group may set obstacles to another group, making it hard for members from a stereotyped group to perform differently from their stereotype (Schaefer). For example, members from a stereotyped group might find it difficult to get a high salary or promotion, which enhance their stereotype about being low-paid and having low positions in their jobs (Neuliep, 2009). For instance, when the television director shooting a story about a black character, his fellow said “have you noticed he’s talking a lot less black lately?” And his co-worker required him to reshoot it. They had a chance to change people’s stereotype about their group, but the dominant group want to maintain those stereotypes. They think that black people should speak as stereotypically “black”. If they do not, they assume they are
The self-fulfilling prophecy is a concept in psychology that has an impact on the way we behave towards others and expect them to behave towards us. If we believe ourselves to be worthwhile, pleasant and likeable then we
More often than not, the outcomes of events that occur in a person’s life is the product of the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is that which “occurs when a person’s expectations of an event make the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true” (Adler and Towne, Looking Out, Looking In 66). Or restated, as Henry Ford once put it, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right!” This brief research paper touches on the two types of self-fulfilling prophecies, those that are self-imposed and those that are imposed by others. Additionally, it gives a discussion on how great of an influence it is in each person’s life, both positively and negatively, and how it consequently helps to mold
David McRaney created this book to inform people of all the misbeliefs that they have, and to give a greater understanding of how they do so. He confirms his beliefs with research on the psychological concepts he discusses, and he gives further evidence by giving real examples of when people are will to complete these faults. What McRaney was us to understand about his book is
Mark's self fulfilling prophecy:- Mark's expectation about himself was to achieve the highest point of his career in his company, corporation presidency. He made this expectation at his own based upon his previous career success;
The first approach to self-schema development we will evaluate is Self-Discrepancy Theory (SDT) (Higgins, 1987). In this theory self-schemas develop to drive the actual self (who somebody is now) towards the ideal self (who somebody wants to be) and the ought self (who somebody should be according to others). Reflected appraisals build a network of the actual self, and this knowledge is used to move towards the ideal and ought selves. Discrepancies between actual and ideal result in dejection, and discrepancies between actual and ought result in agitation (Higgins, Bond, Klein, &
(5) Self- Fulfilling prophecy affects the outcome of expectations while interacting with others. An, example of this is President Bush convinced Congress that invading Iraq would liberate the country and make the world a safer place, without knowing that it would make the Iraqi rebels feel that we were occupying their country and trying to take control the oil.
Education can be defined as a learning process in which a student and a teacher are involved. The work of the teacher is to pass on the message to the student while the student understands and applies what has been taught. It is also considered as a process of developing skills, knowledge and character of an individual. Education, whether formal or informal, has a function both to the individual and the society, these functions are either manifest or latent. There is a distinction between the manifest and latent functions in that the manifest functions are those that are intended whereas the latter are the unintended functions (Douglas, 2003).
Maturation is especially important for individuals as it provides several competitive evolutionary advantages (Locke & Bogin, 2006). Through this process, individuals develop and acquire control over their emotions and behaviours. This ability to monitor and adapt our emotions, cognition and behaviours in accordance to the social and intellectual demands of particular contexts is often referred to as self-regulation (Demetriou, 2000; Zimmerman, 2000). Various complex cognitive skills are required for self-regulation. These skills encompass the constant observation of our thoughts and behaviours, knowledge of the demands of any situation, the capability to alter conditions of our current behaviour as required to achieve a goal or suit a situation and attention to how favourably the demands of a context are met (Evans & Rosenbaum, 2008).
Take care of motivation, and learning will take care of itself. Learning comes from all forms of understanding. A person whether they are children or adults must take care of themselves in order to focus and maintain what is important. Self esteem in students is especially important when students are learning so when the self-esteem is high the motivation is high thus the learning will excel. One of the key responsibilities as teachers is to become a motivator. Motivation is how people move themselves to do an activity, job or anything that needs to be done. Motivation comes within the person and the interest and the spark of curiosity must be ignited, as teachers we gain motivation by rewards, and grades. Which is why motivation needs to be monitored constantly if we have the motivation than our learners will want to learn.