self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief or expectation that helps to bring about its own fulfillment, as, for example, when a person expects nervousness to impair his or her performance in a job interview or when a teacher’s preconceptions about a student’s ability influence the child’s achievement for better or worse. See Pygmalion effect; upward Pygmalion effect. See also behavioral confirmation; demand characteristics; expectancy effect.

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Psychology term of the day

April 20th 2024

population distribution

the arrangement of scores or responses on a variable for a complete population of interest. For example, a researcher could graph the income distribution of all families in a town; in contrast, the sample distribution would show the incomes of only a specific subset of families.