Most everyone has seen criminal trials (both fictitious and real) on TV. You know, then, that the trial starts with opening statements and ends with closing arguments by the prosecution and defense, respectively.
For this Discussion, you will examine the advantages and disadvantages of schemas.
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Review the Learning Resources for this week and consider the advantages and disadvantages of the schema.
Imagine you are a juror. Exactly how do opening statements and closing arguments function as schemas? In particular, what impact would opening statements have on how you, as a juror, would interpret evidence proffered at trial?
Post how your preconceptions (i.e., your schema) might supersede the schema (i.e., theory) of the case as presented by attorneys for the state and for the defendant during opening statements. How might the strength of your preconceptions cause you to reject the attorneys’ attempt to provide a schema for the case?
During jury selection, attorneys for the prosecution and defense question prospective jurors to determine who may already have decided the defendant’s guilt or innocence before hearing the attorneys present the case. As an attorney, it is your job to expose and then counter juror preconceptions that may make them resistant to your schema for the case. Your class colleagues have described how their preconceptions might override the schema you, as an attorney, would advance during opening statements. Describe the strategy you might use to persuade the resistant juror (i.e., the class colleague you are responding to) to set aside her or his preconceptions and consider what you have to say.
Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the social psychology theory and research. In addition to the Learning Resources, search the Walden Library and/or Internet for peer-reviewed articles to support your post and responses. Use proper APA format and citations, including those in the Learning Resources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghNlOsy5DBQ
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M., & Sommers, S. R. (Eds.). (2019). Social psychology (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Chapter 3, “Social Cognition: How We Think About the Social World”
Standard Form Contracts and
Contract Schemas: A
Preliminary Investigation of the
Effects of Exculpatory Clauses
on Consumers’ Propensity to Sue
Dennis P. Stolle, M.A., J.D.,1* and
Andrew J. Slain, B.S.1*
This study investigated the extent to which exculpatory
clauses deter consumers from pursuing their legal rights.
Undergraduate participants (N=101) were presented with
two written vignettes and asked to imagine themselves as a
consumer harmed by a contracted for service.
Participants
then read a contract and responded to questions assessing
their likelihood of seeking compensation and their
perceptions of the contract. The presence of exculpatory
clauses, the severity of the harm, and the nature of the
harm were varied. The data suggest that exculpatory
clauses, if read, have a deterrent effect on propensity to
seek compensation. Development of a psychological
definition of contract schemas and implications for legal
policy are discussed. # 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Behav. Sci. Law Vol. 15, 83±94 1997.
No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 1. No. of Refs: 27.
In 1963, Stewart Macaulay asked a few empirical questions about contract law:
“What good is contract law? who uses it? when and how?” (p. 55). Using survey
and interview methodologies, Macaulay set out to answer those questions.
Interestingly, Macaulay found that formal contract doctrine often takes a back
seat to extra-legal conceptions of fair dealing and “common honesty and decency”
(p. 58). Macaulay’s heavy reliance on empirical data was viewed by some legal
scholars as contributing to the demise of traditional contract theory and doctrine.
CCC 0735±3936/97/010083±12$17.50
#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Behavioral Sciences and the Law, Vol. 15, 83±94 (1997) RESEARCH REPORT
* Correspondence to: either author at 1University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 209 Burnett Hall, Lincoln,
Nebraska 68588-0308 USA. Electronic mail may be directed to the first author at
dstolle@unlgrad1.unl.edu or the second author at aslain@unlgrad1.unl.edu.
Dennis P. Stolle, M.A., J.D. (expected May 1997), and Andrew J. Slain, B.A., are J.D.-Ph.D. students
in the Law/Psychology Program at the University Nebraska-Lincoln. The authors are grateful to
professors Mark Fondacaro, Steven Penrod, Alan Tomkins, and Robert Works for their helpful
suggestions and comments, and Michelle Dreesen for her assistance in collecting and coding the data. A
version of this article was presented at the biennial conference of the American Psychology-Law Society,
Hilton Head, South Carolina, February, 1996.
This research was made possible in part by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln Warden Research Grant
awarded to the first author. This article was completed while the first author was in receipt of a National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fellowship. The financial support of NIMH is gratefully
acknowledged.
Macaulay was even dubbed the “Lord High Executioner of the Contract is Dead
School” (Gilmore, 1974, p. 105). Nonetheless, Macaulay’s findings did not toll the
death knell for contract doctrine and theory. Rather, they offered a new and more
empirically accurate way of conceptualizing contracts.
In the years since Macaulay’s initial work, Law and Society researchers have
continued to offer empirical views of contractual behavior that challenge the
assumptions of traditional contract doctrine (Macaulay, 1985). Although the Law
and Society research has produced findings relevant to both legal and sociolegal
scholars, the research has not emphasized inquiry into the implicit psychology of
contract. Furthermore, the Social Science in Law movement, which places a strong
emphasis on using psychological theory to “sharpen the legal scholar’s insights”
(Monahan & Walker, 1993, p. v), has been largely absent from the empirical
contract literature. Perhaps the most psychologically sophisticated studies of
contractual behaviors are those studies investigating the importance of the
“psychological contract” in employment contexts (e.g., Morrison & Robinson, in
Speidel, 1995; Stratman, 1988; White, 1988). As the domain of contract widens
and shifts, it has become clear that to truly understand the nature of contract,
“empirical theories dealing with the use and abuse of contract behavior in the
shadow of contract law and beyond will be required” (Speidel, 1995, p. 255). The
purpose of the present study was to provide a preliminary attempt at exploring
empirical theories of contract from a psycholegal perspective.
THE PRESENCE OF EXCULPATORY CLAUSES
IN FORM CONTRACTS
The vast majority of consumer transactions are conducted via standardized
agreements presented to consumers on preprinted forms with little or no
opportunity for the consumer to negotiate the terms of the agreement. The
widespread use of standard form contracts is largely a result of their efficiency
(Farnsworth, 1990). Because the costs involved in negotiating individual contracts
would often exceed the potential profit arising from many routine transactions,
standard form contracts are an essential element of modern commercial life
(Farnsworth, 1990).
Unfortunately, traditional contract doctrine, which contemplates a bargained-for
exchange between parties of relatively equal power, often falls short of providing an
adequate analytic framework for resolving disputes involving standard form
contracts (Farnsworth, 1991). Form contracts seldom involve parties of equal
bargaining power, they are typically offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, and the
84 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
terms embodied in such forms sometimes seek to alter the base-line legal rights of
the consumer (Eisenberg, 1995). For example, it is not uncommon for form
contracts to include terms that, if enforced, would relieve the drafting party of
liability for their own negligence. The enforceability of such terms, commonly
referred to as exculpatory clauses, is often unclear (Morant, 1995). Many
jurisdictions have held these types of disclaimers unenforceable because the
terms are either unconscionable, in violation of public policy, or are beyond
the range of the consumer’s reasonable expectations (Morant, 1995). Although the
enforceability of exculpatory clauses is often suspect, they remain commonplace in
consumer form contracts.
Some commentators have suggested that the knowing inclusion of unenforceable
disclaimers is unethical because it creates a facade of legality that may deter
consumers from bringing otherwise legitimate claims against the drafting party
(Kuklin, 1988; Vukowich, 1993). In response to such concerns, the discussion
draft of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct contained a provision prohibiting
lawyers from drafting agreements containing “legally prohibited terms,” or terms
that “would be held to be unconscionable as a matter of law” (Vukowich, 1993,
p. 776). However, strong objections from the legal community to a rule that would
penalize the inclusion of overly broad disclaimers caused the rule to be eliminated,
leaving the current Model Rules without any reference to a lawyer’s responsibility
as a contract drafter (Vukowich, 1993). At least part of the reasoning behind the
objections was that a rule restricting the terms that a lawyer may include in a
contract would infringe upon the lawyer’s ability to fully protect his client’s
interests under a broad range of possible contingencies.
The current state of the common law is such that the inclusion of exculpatory
clauses is prohibited only under limited circumstances. Furthermore, the
enforceability of exculpatory clauses varies greatly between jurisdictions, and as a
function of the specific circumstances, leaving the consumer with little ability to
predict whether any particular disclaimer clause will be enforceable (Morant,
1995). Of course, the extent to which exculpatory clauses actually deter consumers
from bringing legal actions is an empirical question. If such terms do have an effect
on consumers’ propensity to sue, it seems likely that those effects may interact with
other variables, such as the type and severity of the harm suffered by the consumer.
If such terms in fact have no effect on consumers’ propensity to pursue their legal
rights, then some of the concern regarding the presence of such clauses in consumer
form contracts may be unwarranted.
CONTRACT SCHEMAS AND EXCULPATORY CLAUSES
In the present context, a discussion of the effects of exculpatory language on
consumer’s propensity to sue is largely a discussion of “expectations and their
effects” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991, p. 97). Such expectations may form the basis of
cognitive schemasГgeneric knowledge that holds across many particular
instances” (Fiske & Taylor, 1991, p. 98). Indeed, researchers have found support
for the notion of contract schemas in the employment context (Schmedemann &
McLean Parks, 1994; Morrison & Robinson, in press). Like employees, consumers
Standard form contracts 85
may base some of their expectations about contractual transactions upon cognitive
schemas.
Schmedemann and McLean Parks suggest that contract schemas may include
such attributes as legal jargon and the presence of a signature block (1994). Early
empirical work on contract disclaimers suggests that consumers’ contract schemas
may also include a belief that terms in a written contract are generally enforceable.
In 1970, Warren Mueller conducted a study to examine tenant perceptions of
residential leases (1970). Mueller found that most participants in his study believed
that the exculpatory clauses presented in the mock lease would be enforceable and
that there would be little variation between states in terms of enforceability (1970).
These beliefs were erroneous. In fact, Mueller had presented his participants with
clauses unlikely to be upheld in the state where the study was conducted (1970).
Furthermore, at the time the study was conducted, there was wide variability
among states in the enforceability of the clauses presented.
Although Mueller’s study was not intended as an investigation of contract
schemas, his data suggests that, at least in 1970, consumers held a general belief
that provisions contained in the residential leases they sign are enforceable.
However, Mueller’s study suffers from several limitations. Mueller’s participants
responded on a dichotomous, yes/no, scale; consequently, Mueller had no
measurement of the magnitude of his participants’ beliefs. Furthermore,
Mueller’s study was conducted in a survey format with no experimental
manipulations, and Mueller’s participants were not presented with circumstances
in which the exculpatory language would be relevant. Previous schema research
suggests that increasing the costs of being wrong may decrease reliance on schemas
and increase the desire to seek out new data (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Consequently,
a remaining question is whether participants placed in a relevant context in which
an exculpatory clause would have particularly detrimental effects on their
immediate future would abandon their contract schema and seek out new
information. In this context, methods of seeking out relevant information might
include talking to a representative of the drafting party or talking to a lawyer.
METHODS
Participants
Participants were 101 undergraduate students recruited from psychology courses at
a mid-western university. Most participants volunteered in exchange for class
credit. The final sample consisted of 51% women and 45% men; 4% of the
participants failed to indicate their gender. Participants’ mean age was 21, and the
median age was 19.
Materials
Vignettes
Two separate vignettes were utilized, one involving a personal injury and the other
involving damage to personal property. Both vignettes asked participants to
86 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
imagine themselves in the place of a consumer who was harmed as a result of a
contracted for service. In the personal injury vignette, a consumer received either a
small cut or a spinal injury while using exercise equipment at a health club. In the
property damage vignette, a consumer’s car was either scratched or stolen while in
the care of an automotive repair shop. To avoid the complications of insurance,
participants were asked to imagine that they did not have relevant insurance
coverage.
Both vignettes included a copy of the contract that the consumer signedÐa
membership agreement in the health club vignette and an estimate form in the
automotive repair vignette. The contract language was adopted from actual
contracts, with company names and other identifying information altered. The two
contracts were comparable in terms of length, organization, and complexity.1 The
apparent intended legal effect of the exculpatory clause in both contracts was to
relieve the drafting parties of liability even for their own negligence.2
Questionnaire
Each questionnaire contained 6 manipulation check items, 12 items measured on
7-point Likert-type scales, and two open-ended questions. The Likert-type items
were designed to assess the participants’ self-reported likelihood of seeking
compensation and reading the contract, and the participants’ perceptions of the
enforceability, fairness, and difficulty of the contract language. In order to control
for the possibility that some effects may be a function of participants’
predetermined attitudes toward car dealers and health clubs, a final Likert-type
item designed to directly assess perceptions of reputability was included. The
questionnaire items are reproduced in the Appendix.
Design and Procedure
The design was a 2 (severity: minor vs. severe) 62 (presence of exculpatory clause:
present vs. not present) 62 (damage type: personal injury vs. property damage)
design in which the last factor was a repeated measures variable and was used as a
conceptual replication to assess generalization across legal contexts. After
completing an informed consent procedure, each participant received a pack
containing the two contract vignettes and two questionnaires. The order in which
the vignettes appeared was randomly assigned, and the between-subjects conditions
were randomly assigned. The participants were instructed to read through the
Standard form contracts 87
1 Both contracts received a Flesch reading ease score of 23, indicating that the contracts contained
difficult reading appropriate for readers at the 11±13th grade level (Felsenfeld & Siegel, 1981). Both
contracts also received a Gunning’s Fog Index rating of 24. The average word length was 1.68 syllables
in the health club contract and 1.72 syllables in the automotive repair contract. The average sentence
length was 40.8 words and 37.9 words respectively, and the average paragraph length was 1.7 sentences
and 1.5 sentences respectively. Copies of the contracts are available from the first author upon request.
2 The following is an example of the exculpatory language: Buyer specifically agrees that Gym, its
officers, employees and agents shall not be liable for any claim, demand, or cause of action of any kind
whatsoever for, or on account of death, personal injury, property damage or loss of any kind resulting
from or related to Member’s use of the facilities or participation in any sport, exercise or activity within or
without the club premises, and Buyer agrees to hold Gym harmless for same.
materials and to answer the questions following each vignette. Participants were
free to refer back to the vignettes, including the written contract, as they completed
the questionnaires.
Hypotheses
Based on Mueller’s finding that tenants tend to believe that the provisions in
the leases they sign are enforceable, we reasoned that participants would rely
on a contract schema that includes a belief that terms in a written contract are
generally enforceable. Consequently, we expected to find a main effect for the
presence of an exculpatory clause such that participants assigned to conditions
in which an exculpatory clause was present would be less likely than
participants assigned to conditions in which such a clause was not present to
express a strong propensity to seek legal advice or to demand compensation on
their own behalf. Based upon schema theory, we reasoned that as the cost of
being wrong increased, participants’ reliance on their contract schema would
decrease and that participants would show a greater propensity to seek out
additional information. Consequently, we expected to find a main effect for the
severity of the harm such that participants assigned to conditions in which the
harm is minor would be less likely than participants assigned to conditions in
which the harm is severe to express a strong propensity to seek legal advice or
to demand compensation on their own behalf. Furthermore, we expected to
find an interaction between presence of an exculpatory clause and severity of
harm such that when the harm was severe, the presence or absence of an
exculpatory clause would become less relevant to participants’ propensity to
seek legal advice or to demand compensation on their own behalf. Finally, we
expected results would generalize across the two vignettes presented to the
participants.
RESULTS3
Manipulation Checks
Initial analyses were performed on the manipulation check items to determine
whether participants had identified and understood the exculpatory clauses in both
the auto-repair contract and the health club contract. For the auto-repair contract,
a chi-square analysis revealed that almost two-thirds of the participants (65%) were
able to correctly identify whether or not a clause was present that may prevent their
recovery in a lawsuit, w2 (1, N=99)=8.49, p=0.004. Furthermore, most participants
(82%) who correctly indicated that a clause was present were able to correctly
88 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
3 Prior to analysis, each item was examined for accuracy of data entry, missing values, and fit between
their distributions and the assumptions of multivariate analysis. Square root transformations were
performed on four of the items to address their unacceptable skewness. With the transformed variables in
the variable set, one case was identified through Mahalanobis distance as a multivariate outlier and was
deleted from the data set.
identify the paragraph containing the exculpatory clause, w2 (5, N=53)=41.98,
p50.001.4
For the health club contract, a chi-square analysis again revealed that almost
two-thirds of the participants (66%) were able to correctly identify whether or not a
clause was present that may prevent their recovery in a lawsuit, w2 (1,
N=100)=10.35, p50.001. Furthermore, an examination of the presence of
clause by paragraph cross-classification table revealed that of those participants
who correctly indicated a clause was present over 70% correctly identified
paragraph five as containing the clause. However, twelve participants in conditions
containing no relevant exculpatory language also indicated that paragraph five
contained relevant exculpatory language. These false positive identifications led to
a non-significant chi-square statistic, w2 (6, N=58)=6.97, p=0.32.5
Principal Components Analysis
A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed on
all subjects’ responses to the 12 Likert-type questions (collapsed across the eight
conditions, N=100). The purpose of this procedure was to simplify analysis and
clarify measurements by developing a small set of uncorrelated components
representing the larger number of questionnaire items. Four components were
extracted based upon the eigenvalue greater than one criteria. However, an
examination of the initial statistics revealed that a fifth component had an
eigenvalue of 0.95. Consequently, a five component solution was attempted.
When five components were extracted, the fifth component was unique, with
only the reputability item loading on that component. To be considered a part of a
component, an item was required to have a loading of 0.64 on only that
component. This five component solution was retained because it increased the
interpretability of the components by separating the reputability item, which was
intended to assess predetermined attitudes toward car dealers and health clubs
rather than to assess the effects of the experimental manipulations. The five
components accounted for 74.7% of the total measurement variance. The
constituent items and their loadings are presented in Table 1.
The labeled components in order of percentage of explained variance were 1)
propensity to seek compensation, 2) likelihood of reading, 3) fairness/readability, 4)
similarity/enforceability, and 5) reputability. It was reasoned that propensity to seek
compensation, fairness, and similarity/enforceability would be significantly related
to the variables manipulated in the vignettes. In contrast, it was reasoned that the
experimental manipulations would be unlikely to effect likelihood of reading, and
Standard form contracts 89
4 Interestingly, among those participants who mistakenly identified an exculpatory clause when none
was present, 68% identified paragraph 3 as containing the exculpatory clause. Paragraph 3 of the auto-
repair contract did contain disclaimers regarding a parts warranty, perhaps making paragraph 3 the best
choice in the absence of the experimental exculpatory clause. However, the warranty language was not
legally relevant under the circumstances described to the participants.
5 Paragraph five did contain some exculpatory type language even when the experimental clause was not
present. However, the remaining exculpatory language was not relevant under the circumstances
described. Yet, the language may have appeared relevant to the naive legal actor, accounting for the
false±positive identifications.
that any difference in perceptions of reputability would likely be the result of
predetermined attitudes toward car dealers and health clubs. To test these
hypotheses, a new set of composite variables was created to represent the
components, each variable being the average of the set of variables that loaded on a
component.
Analysis of Variance
An ANOVA was performed on each of the orthogonal composite variables, with
follow-up analyses of simple effects where appropriate. First, regarding the effects
of presence of an exculpatory clause, analysis of variance revealed a main effect
such that when the clause was present participants indicated that they would be less
likely to demand compensation or seek legal advice than when the clause was not
present, F(1,95)=4.09, p=0.046, Z2=0.04.
Second, regarding the effects of severity of the harm, analysis of variance revealed
a significant interaction between severity of the harm and damage type for
propensity to seek compensation, F(1,95)=4.75, p=0.032, Z2=0.05. Analysis of
simple effects for propensity to seek compensation revealed that in the property
damage vignette participants indicated that they would be more likely to seek
compensation when the harm was severe (M=3.37) than when the harm was minor
(M=2.95), F(1,98)=5.18, p=0.025, Z2=0.05. Furthermore, when the harm was
minor, participants indicated that they would be more likely to seek compensation
in the personal injury vignette (M=3.31) than in the property damage vignette
(M=2.95), F(1,50)=3.21, p=0.057, Z2=0.06.
Finally, regarding the effects of damage type, analysis of variance revealed a
significant main effect such that participants indicated that in general health clubs
are more reputable than auto dealerships, F(1,95)=44.18, p50.001, Z2=0.32.
90 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
Table 1. Results of the principal components analysis on contract questionnaire items
Component Variance
(%)
Constituent Items Loadings
1. Propensity to seek 23.6 Probability that a lawsuit would be successful. 0.87
compensation Probability that demand will be successful. 0.84
Likelihood of demanding payment for losses. 0.76
Likelihood of seeking advice from an attorney. 0.69
2. Likelihood of reading 20.7 Likelihood of reading the agreement. 0.91
contract Likelihood of reading the agreement carefully. 0.88
3. Fairness and 12.5 Likelihood that contract violates legal rights. 0.79
Readability Difficulty understanding the contract
language.
0.70
Fairness of the contract as a whole. 0.68
4. Similarity and 10.1 Similarity of contract to those commonly used. 0.81
Enforceability Likelihood a court would enforce the contract. 0.64
5. Reputability 7.9 Reputability of most garages/gyms in general. 0.95
Total 74.7
Qualitative Responses
The qualitative results allowed for an examination of more psychologically rich
responses. The first open-ended question provides some additional insight into
participants’ initial reaction to the events described in the vignettes. A total of 94
out of 100 participants answered the following question: “What would you do in
similar circumstances?” Three coders independently categorized the responses with
an inter-rater reliability of 87%.6 Collapsed across all of the conditions, participants
indicated that their likely courses of action might include seeking legal help,
engaging in self-help, absorbing the costs themselves, ending their business
relationship with the drafting party, or seeking help from insurance agents, police,
friends, or family. However, most responses indicated an intention to either seek
legal help (46%) or engage in self-help (29%).
DISCUSSION
The primary focus of this study was the effect of exculpatory clauses on consumers’
propensity to seek compensation when harmed in a setting governed by a form
contract. As indicated by the qualitative results, participants’ initial reaction to the
described situations was to seek compensation, either through legal representation
or by dealing directly with the representatives of the business. However, consistent
with the concerns of many legal scholars, the presence of exculpatory language did
have a deterrent effect on participants’ propensity to seek compensation. This main
effect for presence of an exculpatory clause is also consistent with previous research
suggesting that consumers’ contract schema includes a general belief that written
contract terms are enforceable (Mueller, 1970), thus accounting for their decreased
propensity to seek compensation in the face of an exculpatory clause. Surprisingly,
the presence of an exculpatory clause did not impact participants’ perceptions of
the fairness of the contracts.
We expected that when the costs of being wrong were great (i.e., the harm was
severe), participants would be less likely to rely on their contract schemas (Fiske &
Taylor, 1991). This hypothesis received partial support. There was no main effect
for severity of the harm. However, a significant interaction between damage type
and severity of the harm revealed that in the property damage vignette participants
indicated a greater propensity to seek compensation when the harm was severe than
when the harm was minor. In contrast, severity of the harm had no effect on
propensity to seek compensation in the personal injury vignette. Furthermore,
participants indicated a greater propensity to seek compensation when the harm
was minor in the personal injury vignette than in the property damage vignette.
These effects may be the result of participants having a stronger affective reaction to
Standard form contracts 91
6 The first coder grouped the responses in a manner such that seven representative categories developed.
Using the category definitions developed by the first coder, two more coders independently categorized
the responses. The assessment of inter-rater reliability was calculated by dividing the number of
agreements by the number of agreements plus disagreements between each possible pairing of researchers
on a large sample of the coded data. The three percentages of agreement between the three indepedent
coders (84%, 90%, 86%) were then averaged to produce the overall inter-rater reliability of 87%.
personal injuries than to property damage, leading them to be more likely to seek
compensation for a personal injury regardless of the specific circumstances.
The type of damage repeated measures variable was included to determine
whether the effects of presence of an exculpatory clause and severity of the harm
would generalize across contexts. Thus, we did not expect any main effects of type
of damage for propensity to seek compensation. However, because the property
damage condition involved a car dealership and the personal injury condition
involved a health club, we were concerned that participants may bring
predetermined attitudes regarding the reputability of car dealers and health
clubs. Rather than allow this potential confound, we directly measured
participants’ attitudes towards car dealerships and health clubs. Consistent with
our concerns, participants rated health clubs as being more reputable than car
dealerships. However, the only main effect of damage type was for reputability,
suggesting that participants’ attitudes towards car dealerships and health clubs had
little effect on their ratings on the other dependent variables.
Limitations and Implications
This study represents a novel, but preliminary, attempt at expanding empirical
psychological inquiry into an area of contract law that has been relatively untapped
by psycholegal researchers. Although it is quite likely that undergraduates are
regularly exposed to the types of contracts presented in our vignettes, the use of
undergraduate participants and a vignette methodology does limit the
generalizability of these results. Replications with differing methods and
populations are needed. Furthermore, the high number of false positive
identifications of exculpatory language revealed in the manipulation checks
suggest that the participants had considerable difficulty comprehending the
contractual language,7 and this may have contributed to the relatively small
effect size (n2=0.04) for presence of the clause. Such difficulties are not inconsistent
with previous findings (Masson & Waldron, 1994) and may be exacerbated in
research using less well educated samples. It must also be remembered that many
consumers may not read form contracts at the time of the transaction.8
Furthermore, it can be assumed that not all consumers would refer back to the
language of their contract after incurring an injury as a result of the contracted for
service.
Although preliminary, the present data do raise several interesting implications
for the ongoing legal debate over the inclusion of potentially unenforceable
exculpatory clauses and the ongoing development of psychological theories of
contractual behaviors. First, consistent with the concerns of many legal scholars,
the presence of exculpatory language in form contracts does appear to have some
deterrent effect on consumers’ propensity to seek compensation. Second,
consistent with the findings of Schmedemann and McLean Parks (1994), the
92 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
7 Participants in this study indicated that the language contained in the contracts was “somewhat
difficult” to understand (M=3.8).
8 Participants in this study indicated that they would be “somewhat likely” to read the contract
(M=4.00) but would be less likely to read the contract closely (M=3.53), t(99)=4.51, p50.001.
data supports the notion of a contract schema. Third, consistent with the findings
of Mueller (1970), the data suggest that consumers’ contract schemas may include
a general belief that all contract terms are enforceable. Finally, the results suggest
that in the face of increased costs of being wrong, consumers may abandon their
contract schema. In cases involving damage to property, when the severity of the
harm was great participants showed a greater propensity to seek compensation
rather than rely on their general belief in the enforceability of contract terms.
Additional research should further investigate the nature and content of contract
schemas and their impact on decision making across a variety of subject
populations and transactional contexts.
APPENDIX
PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.
FEEL FREE TO REFER BACK TO THE SCENARIO
YOU JUST READ.
1. What would you do in similar circumstances? Please explain briefly:
2. How similar do you think this [agreement/estimate] is to those used by most
[health clubs/garages]?
3. How difficult do you find the language of the [membership/estimate] form to
understand?
4. Under the circumstances described above, how likely do you think you
would have been to read the agreement?
5. Under the circumstances described above, how likely do you think you
would have been to read the agreement closely?
6. How likely would you be to demand that the [health club/garage] pay for
your losses?
7. How successful do you think you would be if you demanded that the [health
club/garage] pay for your losses?
8. Do you think that there are any clauses in the [membership/estimate] form
that might prevent you from recovering on your demand?
8a. If so, please circle the number of the paragraph(s) that might prevent
your recovery:
9. How likely would you be to seek advice from an attorney?
10. Assuming the attorney advised you a lawsuit was possible, how successful do
you think your lawsuit might be?
11. Do you think that there are any clauses in the [membership/estimate] form
that might prevent you from recovering in a lawsuit?
11a. If so, please circle the number of the paragraph(s) that might prevent
your recovery:
12. How likely do you think it is that the [membership/estimate] form you signed
violates your legal rights?
13. How likely do you think it is that a court of law would uphold the
[membership/estimate] form that you signed?
14. How fair do you think the [membership/estimate] form as a whole is?
Standard form contracts 93
15. Do you think that any of the paragraphs in the [membership/estimate] form
are unethical?
15a. If so, please circle the number of the paragraph(s) that might be
unethical:
16. Have you ever had an experience similar to that in this scenario? Explain:
17. How reputable do you think most [health clubs/garages] are in general?
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94 D. P. Stolle and A. J. Slain
Copyright of Behavioral Sciences & the Law is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not
be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Heather Nofziger and Elizabeth R. Salib
Rutgers University
Jennifer Willard
Kennesaw State University
Kyle C. Scherr
Central Michigan University
A recurring theme in the psychological literature is that the self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes can
accumulate across perceivers. This article provides the first empirical support for this long-standing
hypothesis. In three experiments (Ns � 123–241), targets more strongly confirmed a stereotype as the
number of perceivers who held stereotypic expectations about them increased. A fourth experiment (N �
121) showed that new perceivers judged targets according to the stereotypic behaviors they had
previously been channeled to adopt, an effect that even occurred among perceivers who were privy to the
fact that targets’ behavior had been shaped by the actions of others. The authors discuss ways in which
these effects may contribute to group inequalities.
New Look in Perception of the 1940s and 1950s initiated a
revolution in approaches to perception within social psycholog
y.
Departing from the prevailing view that perception is veridical,
New Look in Perception research promoted the idea that percep-
tion is influenced by the goals, needs, and motives of perceivers.
An influential perspective that emerged from this movement was a
weak form of social constructionism. According to this perspec-
tive, social beliefs can alter reality and shape behavior. The self-
fulfilling prophecy is central to this perspective because it involves
a perceiver’s false expectation about a target initiating a sequence
of events that causes the target to exhibit expectancy-consistent
behavior, thereby making the initially false expectation true. This
research tested a core tenet of social constructionism within social
psychology—the idea that self-fulfilling prophecy effects can ac-
cumulate across perceivers. Moreover, it tested this hypothesis
with respect to stereotypes, which psychological theory proposes
contribute to group inequalities through their cumulative self-
fulfilling effects.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Their
Cumulative Effects
The idea that false expectations can lead to their own fulfillment
originated in the writings of Merton (1948). Merton proposed that
the self-fulfilling prophecy was a powerful process capable of
producing profound social problems including war, economic
downturns, academic underachievement, and racial disparities in
employment and wealth. Research bearing on Merton’s analysis
clearly supported the existence of self-fulfilling prophecies, but not
the idea that self-fulfilling prophecy effects are powerful. Both
experimental and naturalistic research have converged on the con-
clusion that perceivers’ false expectations have only modest self-
fulfilling effects on the behavior of targets (Jussim, 2012;
Rosenthal, 1994, 2003). However, these modest effects should not
be interpreted to mean that self-fulfilling prophecies can never be
powerful. Even small self-fulfilling prophecy effects can become
powerful if they accumulate across perceivers (e.g., Jussim,
Eccles, & Madon, 1996; Klein & Snyder, 2003; Madon, Guyll,
Spoth, & Willard, 2004; Merton, 1948).
The potential for self-fulfilling prophecy effects to accumulate
across perceivers represents a central theme within social psychol-
ogy (Ross, Lepper, & Ward, 2010). Yet, only one study has
empirically supported the hypothesized effect. In the context of a
Stephanie Madon, Psychology Department, Iowa State University; Lee
Jussim, Psychology Department, Rutgers University; Max Guyll, Psychol-
ogy Department, Iowa State University; Heather Nofziger and Elizabeth R.
Salib, Psychology Department, Rutgers University; Jennifer Willard, Psy-
chology Department, Kennesaw State University; Kyle C. Scherr, Psychol-
ogy Department, Central Michigan University.
Heather Nofziger is now at The NPD Group. Elizabeth R. Salib is now
at Heidrick Consulting.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Stephanie
Madon, Psychology Department, Iowa State University, W112 Lagomar-
cino Hall, 901 Stange Road, Ames, IA 50011-1041. E-mail: madon@
iastate.edu
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CORRECTED. SEE LAST PAGE
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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:
Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes
longitudinal study involving parents and their adolescent children,
Madon et al. (2004) found that adolescents drank the greatest
amount of alcohol when mothers and fathers both held negative
expectations about their future alcohol use. However, because
Madon et al. demonstrated this effect with correlational data, they
could not rule out predictive accuracy as an alternative explanation
of the findings. Put differently, their data could not exclude the
possibility that parents’ negative expectations were accurate from
the outset, in which case they could not have been self-fulfilling,
a limitation that characterizes all correlational self-fulfilling proph-
ecy research.
The only way to eliminate predictive accuracy as an alternative
to a self-fulfilling prophecy interpretation is to experimentally
manipulate perceivers’ expectations. Accordingly, there is a need
to examine the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecy effects
across perceivers in tightly controlled laboratory experiments. It is
especially important to examine this process with respect to ste-
reotypes, which for 70 years have been hypothesized to contribute
to group inequalities via their cumulative self-fulfilling effects
(Jussim et al., 1996; Klein & Snyder, 2003; Merton, 1948; Word,
Zanna, & Cooper, 1974).
There is good evidence that stereotypes can have self-fulfilling
effects on targets’ behavior (Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977;
Word et al., 1974). However, research demonstrating this effect
has focused exclusively on dyadic relations involving one per-
ceiver and one target. Although this focus is often warranted, it
may underestimate the power of stereotypes because it does not
account for the possibility that their self-fulfilling effects may
accumulate across multiple perceivers. Specifically, because ste-
reotypes can be consensual, different perceivers may hold similar
expectations about members of stereotyped groups (Madon et al.,
2001). To the extent that these expectations are false for a partic-
ular target, each perceiver may have a self-fulfilling effect that
combines with the self-fulfilling effects of other perceivers to
ultimately cause a target to confirm the stereotype more strongly
than would have been the case had only one perceiver held the
false stereotypic expectation.
Situational Affordances
One mechanism through which stereotypes may have cumula-
tive self-fulfilling effects is situational affordances. Generally
speaking, affordances are the properties of a stimulus that encour-
age a particular behavioral response (Gibson, 1979). In the words
of Koffka (1935), for example, “a fruit says, ‘Eat me’; water says,
‘Drink me’.” (p. 7). Although typically applied to the properties of
objects, perceivers’ treatment of targets can construct situations
with opportunities or constraints that may likewise be viewed as
affordances. If these opportunities and constraints channel a target
to behaviorally confirm a false expectation, then the self-fulfilling
prophecy occurs because the situation afforded such behavior.
Classic considerations of the self-fulfilling prophecy highlight
situational affordances as a key mechanism through which stereo-
types can become self-fulfilling. For example, Merton (1948)
argued that the early 20th century practice of barring Blacks from
labor unions on grounds that they were strike breakers encouraged
Black laborers to cross picket lines by restricting their job oppor-
tunities. Similarly, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) and Rist (2000)
hypothesized that negative expectations caused teachers to limit
the educational opportunities available to disadvantaged students,
thereby undermining those students’ academic achievement. These
examples illustrate how perceivers’ treatment of targets can con-
struct situational affordances that encourage targets to behaviorally
confirm a stereotype.
The potential for a stereotype’s self-fulfilling effect to accumu-
late across perceivers arises when multiple perceivers provide
similar situational affordances to the same target. For example,
consider a scenario in which two educators independently provide
a female student with a situational affordance that encourages
confirmation of sex stereotypes: A math teacher inappropriately
tracks her into a low-ability math class, and a guidance counselor
encourages her to take home economics or typing as the required
elective, never suggesting alternatives such as computer program-
ming or woodshop. Although these situational affordances do not
prevent the student from excelling in math or enrolling in a
male-dominated elective, they will tend to channel her in the
direction of confirming sex stereotypes. Moreover, because two
educators each constructed the situation in this way, the overall
effect on the student stands to be greater than if only one educator
had done so. This is because multiple perceivers who share, and
independently act upon, a false expectation generate multiple
vectors of influence that can combine to shape the totality of the
situation faced by a target in a way that more strongly affords
behavioral confirmation of a stereotype than is the case with only
one perceiver.
Research Overview
The primary objective of the present research was to test the
hypothesis that the self-fulfilling effects of stereotypes can accu-
mulate across perceivers. Experiment 1 tested this hypothesis with
respect to the overweight stereotype, whereas Experiments 2 and 3
tested this hypothesis with respect to sex stereotypes. Consistent
with classic considerations of the self-fulfilling prophecy, the
experiments focused on situational affordances as the underlying
mechanism of the hypothesized accumulation effect.
Experiment 4
tested whether targets’ confirmatory behavior— behavior that was
caused by a stereotype’s prior cumulative self-fulfilling effect—
influences new perceivers’ judgments of them. This issue is im-
portant because it addresses the possibility that once the cumula-
tive self-fulfilling effect of a stereotype has been set in motion, it
can contribute to a cycle whereby prior self-fulfilling prophecy
effects lead new perceivers to develop false expectations, which
may themselves become self-fulfilling.
Analytic Strategy
Although the methods of the experiments differed, the same
analytic strategy was used to test the accumulation hypothesis.
First, the analyses tested whether perceivers developed stereotypic
expectations about a target. Second, the analyses tested whether
perceivers’ stereotypic expectations led them to provide targets
with situational affordances that encouraged a stereotypic re-
sponse. Third, the analyses examined whether the number of
perceivers who held a stereotypic expectation about a target influ-
enced how strongly the target confirmed the stereotype. Fourth, a
series of planned contrasts tested for dyadic self-fulfilling proph-
ecy effects involving one perceiver and one target, and then for the
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826 MADON ET AL.
hypothesized accumulation effect which, in this research, involved
two perceivers and one target. Finally, the analyses explored
whether the accumulation effects reflected concurrent or synergis-
tic accumulation. Concurrent accumulation occurs when multiple
perceivers each have a unique, additive self-fulfilling effect on a
target’s behavior (Jussim et al., 1996). Synergistic accumulation
occurs when the self-fulfilling effects of multiple perceivers are
stronger in combination than their additive effects would suggest
(Madon et al., 2004).
Type I Error
Bonferroni corrections and Tukey’s HSD contrasts controlled
for Type I error when there were multiple comparisons, any one of
which would support a predicted effect (e.g., testing whether
perceivers developed stereotypic expectations). LSD contrasts
were used when Type I error was not an issue because the pre-
dicted effect required only a single significant comparison (e.g.,
testing whether a stereotype had a cumulative self-fulfilling effect)
or required multiple significant comparisons to support a predicted
effect (e.g., testing for concurrent or synergistic accumulation).
Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to exam-
ine the effect of experimental factors on multiple dependent vari-
ables of the same underlying construct.
Power and Effect Sizes
Meta-analyses of interpersonal self-fulfilling prophecies report
an average effect size of d � .60 (Rosenthal, 1994). Because the
current research focused on accumulation, we increased this effect
size by 10% when performing power analyses. The results indi-
cated that Experiments 1 and 2 each required a sample size of 93
to achieve a power of .80 for detecting the anticipated accumula-
tion effect of d � .66, whereas Experiment 3 required a sample
size of 115. When calculating the sample size of Experiment 4, we
used an effect size of d � .80 on grounds that the meta-analytic
effect of individuating information on person perception is large
(Kunda & Thagard, 1996). Using this estimate, a power analysis
indicated that Experiment 4 required a sample of 80 to achieve a
power of .80. All sample sizes exceeded these minimums. Effect
sizes and their confidence intervals (CI) are reported in terms of d,
�2, and �p2, which were calculated with scripts developed by
Wuensch (2012). A 95% CI is reported for d, and a 90% CI for �2
and �p2 (Steiger, 2004).
Experiment 1
Experiment 1 tested whether the self-fulfilling effect of the
overweight stereotype can accumulate across perceivers. The pro-
cedures involved two phases. Phase 1 manipulated a target’s
weight to examine whether it influenced the situational affor-
dances that individual perceivers provided a target. Phase 2 ex-
posed a new group of participants (designated as targets) to the
combined situational affordances that two randomly paired per-
ceivers had provided the target in Phase 1. Targets’ behavior
during the experimental session indexed the degree to which they
confirmed the overweight stereotype.
Method
Participants. Undergraduates (N � 723) at Iowa State Uni-
versity participated to fulfill a course requirement, including 403
women, 319 men, and one participant who omitted a response.
There were 19 African Americans, 26 Asian/Asian Americans,
626 European Americans, 5 Native Americans, 5 Indians, and 42
participants who self-described as multiethnic.
Experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to
triads (N � 241 triads) each consisting of two perceivers and one
target. Each triad was randomly assigned to one of three expecta-
tion conditions. In the no-overweight expectation condition (n �
83 triads), both perceivers in a triad believed the target was thin. In
the single-overweight expectation condition (n � 76 triads), one
perceiver in a triad believed the target was thin, whereas the other
believed the target was heavy. In the double-overweight expecta-
tion condition (n � 82 triads), both perceivers in a triad believed
the target was heavy. Although triad was the unit of analysis,
participants completed the experimental procedures independent-
ly; hence, the data were not nested. The targets’ weight was
manipulated with a bogus profile and photograph that were ran-
domly assigned to perceivers.
Phase 1: Materials and measures.
Profile. A handwritten profile that appeared to have been
completed by the target at an earlier session reported the target’s
sex, age, height, weight, and personality. The profile always de-
scribed the target as female, European American, 21 years old,
“between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches tall”, and as having a
constellation of personality traits that was held constant. The
profile systematically varied the target’s weight to be “between
101 and 120 pounds” (n � 242) or “between 181 and 200 pounds”
(n � 240).
Photograph. A photograph of a heavy or thin European Amer-
ican woman in her early twenties accompanied each profile. For
stimulus sampling purposes, two photographs depicted a heavy
woman and two depicted a thin woman.
Perceiver behavior. Perceivers predicted the target’s attitudes
and behaviors on a variety of issues by responding to a series of
questions. Included among these was a critical item that assessed
the extent to which perceivers provided the target with a situational
affordance that encouraged confirmation of the overweight stereo-
type. Specifically, perceivers were shown colored pictures of four
bins that contained 2 (Bin 1), 4 (Bin 2), 20 (Bin 3), and 40 (Bin 4)
pieces of candy, and asked “Which bin should be given to the
person in the next phase? Choose the bin that you think contains
the approximate amount of candy the person would eat if nobody
was around.” Four types of candy were used: Kisses, Butterfingers,
Peanut Butter Cups, and Kit-Kats, the last three of which were all
fun-size. Except for Bin 1, which contained one Butterfinger and
one Kit-Kat, equal numbers of each type of candy were included
in each bin.
Although the amount of candy in the bins was arbitrary, the
spread was by design. We did not want perceivers to have the
option of selecting an intermediate amount of candy because such
an option would have encouraged them to hedge. We wanted to
compel perceivers to make a clear choice: choose a little or choose
a lot. We included some variation on each side so that perceivers
did not feel overly restricted in their choices. To reduce suspicion,
the critical item was embedded among fillers each accompanied by
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827CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
a colored picture (i.e., how much the target liked popular TV
shows; target’s likelihood of using an electronic voting machine
and taking an online college course; how favorably the target
viewed DNA testing).
Manipulation checks. To assess whether perceivers noticed
the target’s weight, they reported the target’s weight category as
indicated on the profile. This question was embedded among fillers
that instructed perceivers to report the target’s sex and height,
which were also indicated on the profile. To assess whether the
target’s weight activated perceivers’ stereotypes, perceivers judged
the target with respect to five traits, including two that are stereo-
typic of heavy people (willpower, self-control) and three that are
not strongly associated with weight (outgoing, intelligent, reli-
gious; Crandall, 1994; Puhl & Brownell, 2001). Perceivers made
these trait judgments on 7-point scales with endpoints 1 (not at all)
and 7 (very much).
Suspicion check for perceivers. Perceivers reported their be-
liefs about the experiment’s purpose, research questions under
investigation, and any prior knowledge they had of the study.
Phase 2: Materials and measures.
Candy. Each target received one bowl of candy that included
the exact amount and type of candy that the two perceivers in the
target’s triad had selected for the target in Phase 1. For example, if one
perceiver selected Bin 1 (i.e., one Butterfinger and one Kit-Kat) and
the other perceiver selected Bin 2 (i.e., one Kiss, one Butterfinger,
one Peanut Butter Cup, and one Kit-Kat), then the target in this
triad would have received one bowl of candy that included one
Kiss, two Butterfingers, one Peanut Butter Cup, and two Kit-Kats.
Thus, each perceiver independently selected a bin of candy for the
target in Phase 1, and the candy they selected was combined and
given to a target in Phase 2. This procedure created a situation that
is analogous to real-world circumstances in which the independent
actions of multiple perceivers (e.g., teachers, employers, parents)
can combine to affect how strongly the situation faced by a target
(e.g., student, employee, child) encourages behavioral confirma-
tion of a stereotype.
Target behavior. The amount of candy targets took from the
bowl provided an explicit behavior with which to determine how
strongly they confirmed the overweight stereotype.
Filler questions and props. To support the cover story used in
Phase 2—that the study was designed to examine the relationship
between personality and taste preferences—all targets completed
filler questions that assessed their personality traits and expecta-
tions about the candy they expected to eat. In addition, several
props encouraged targets to take candy home. A printed sign read:
“Feel free to take as much candy home with you as you like. We
have plenty.” There was a large stack of brown paper lunch bags
provided for the purpose of carrying the candy. A garbage can
filled with candy wrappers was placed on the floor near targets. At
the end of the session, a computer message encouraged targets to
take candy home.
Suspicion check for targets. Targets described their beliefs
about the experiment’s purpose and reported any prior knowledge
they had of the study.
Procedures.
Phase 1. Perceivers were run in group sessions, but provided
independent responses. After obtaining informed consent, the ex-
perimenter described the study as examining how accurately peo-
ple can predict other people’s attitudes and behaviors from their
personalities. Perceivers then received a packet that included the
target’s profile and photograph, plus a survey. Although perceivers
believed the target was another participant in the study and unique
to them, multiple copies of the four different photographs were
distributed at each experimental session, but ordered in a way that
prevented adjacent perceivers from receiving the same one.
To substantiate the target’s authenticity, the experimenter asked
perceivers to indicate whether they knew the person assigned to
them. A stooge planted in the group publicly stated knowing the
person in her or his packet. In response, the experimenter gave the
stooge a new packet and asked if s/he knew this second person.
The stooge always indicated that s/he did not, at which point the
experimenter again asked if there were others who knew the
person in their respective packets. When it was confirmed that no
one did, the experimenter explained that the individuals in the
packets had completed a profile and provided a photograph at an
earlier session, and would return for another session to have their
attitudes and behaviors assessed.
The experimenter then directed perceivers to use the target’s
profile to complete the accompanying survey, which instructed
them to predict the target’s attitudes and behaviors on the same
issues they believed the target would provide information about at
the later session. Perceivers believed that their predictions would
be compared with the target’s actual responses. Perceivers retained
the profile and photograph while making their predictions. After-
ward, participants completed the manipulation and suspicion
checks and provided demographic information. Debriefing fol-
lowed. The stooge completed all materials along with perceivers.
Phase 2. After the data from Phase 1 had been collected, the
perceivers were randomly paired to create the expectation condi-
tions. The candy selected by each pair of perceivers was combined
and given to a third participant who was randomly assigned to be
the target in the triad. After providing informed consent, the
experimenter escorted each target to a private room equipped with
a computer, bowl of candy, and props. The experimenter explained
that the study was designed to examine how personality relates to
taste preferences, and informed targets that they would perform
a taste test of candy immediately after answering survey questions.
The target was further informed that the experimenter would wait
for the target to complete the experiment in a separate lab, and that
the target should come to that location at the end of the session to
receive research credit. This procedure provided targets with com-
plete privacy, thereby reducing any inhibitions they might have
had taking candy. After completing the survey, which included
filler questions and suspicion checks, the computer informed tar-
gets that they would not engage in a taste test of the candy after all,
but were free to take as much as they wanted. Targets then met the
experimenter as instructed, and were debriefed. Upon their depar-
ture, the experimenter returned to the testing room to record the
amount of candy taken.
Results
Preliminary analyses.
Descriptive statistics. Supplemental Tables 1 and 2 report
descriptive statistics for the variables in Phase 1 and Phase 2,
respectively.
Manipulation checks. There were 480 perceivers (�99%)
who correctly reported the target’s weight and 2 (�1%) who
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828 MADON ET AL.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000142.supp
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000142.supp
omitted a response. Independent sample t tests, with a Bonferroni
correction criterion of p � .01, indicated that perceivers judged the
target as having significantly less willpower and self-control when
they believed the target was heavy versus thin, ts � 3.98, ps �
.001; perceivers’ judgments of the target’s outgoingness, intelli-
gence, and religiosity did not differ significantly as a function of
the target’s weight, ts � 1.46, ps � .146. These results show that
perceivers developed stereotypic expectations about the target.
Table 1 reports the means, standard deviations, and effect sizes
associated with these results.
Suspicion checks. There were five suspicious perceivers and
two suspicious targets, no two from the same triad. Excluding their
data slightly increased the expectation’s effect, but did not mean-
ingfully alter the results. No participant’s data were excluded from
the analyses.
Main analyses. The manipulation checks demonstrated that
perceivers developed stereotypic expectations about the target.
Therefore, the main analyses tested for a series of effects that are
relevant to the overweight stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling
effect.
Situational affordances. First, the analyses tested whether
perceivers’ stereotypic expectations caused them to provide the
target with a situational affordance that encouraged confirmation
of the overweight stereotype. A Mann–Whitney U test examined
whether the target’s weight (heavy vs. thin) influenced the bin of
candy that individual perceivers selected for the target in Phase 1.
The results showed that perceivers chose bins containing signifi-
cantly more candy when they believed the target was heavy
(Mdn � Bin 3, 20 pieces of candy) versus thin (Mdn � Bin 2, 4
pieces of candy), U � 12,279, p � .001. Thus, individual perceiv-
ers provided the target with a situational affordance that more
strongly encouraged confirmation of the overweight stereotype
when they believed the target was heavy versus thin.
In addition, a one-way ANOVA tested whether the number of
perceivers who believed the target was heavy influenced the
amount of candy targets received in Phase 2. The independent
variable was the expectation (no-overweight vs. single-overweight
vs. double-overweight). The dependent variable was the amount of
candy given to targets in Phase 2. The results showed that targets
received the least candy in the no-overweight expectation condi-
tion (M � 17, SD � 13.14), an intermediate amount of candy in
the single-overweight expectation condition (M � 27, SD 14.82),
and the most candy in the double-overweight expectation condi-
tion (M � 42, SD � 15.74), F(2, 238) � 59.01, p � .001, �2 �
.33, 90% CI [0.25, 0.40]. Three Tukey’s HSD contrasts indicated
that these amounts all differed significantly from one another,
ts(238) � 3.98, ps � .001, ds � .63. These results demonstrate that
the situation constructed by two independent perceivers afforded
targets more opportunity to confirm the overweight stereotype than
did the situation constructed by individual perceivers singly.
Target behavior. Second, the analyses tested whether the
number of perceivers who held a stereotypic expectation about
the target influenced how strongly the target confirmed the stereo-
type. A one-way ANOVA indicated differences in the effect of the
expectation (no-overweight vs. single-overweight vs. double-
overweight) on the amount of candy taken by targets in Phase 2,
F(2, 238) � 5.32, p � .005, �2 � .043, 90% CI [0.01, 0.09]. A
mediational path model showed that the amount of candy targets
received explained 86% of the expectation’s effect, b � .744;
SE � .228, p � .001, suggesting nearly full mediation.
Self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Third, an LSD contrast tested
for a dyadic self-fulfilling effect involving one perceiver and
one target by comparing the amount of candy taken by targets
in the no- and single-overweight expectation conditions. No
significant difference emerged, indicating that individual percei-
vers’ stereotypic expectations did not have a self-fulfilling effect
(Mno-overweight � 3.04, SDno-overweight � 2.85 vs. Msingle-overweight �
2.99, SDsingle-overweight � 3.62), t(238) � 0.08, p � .94, 95% CI
[�1.19, 1.29], d � 0.01, 95% CI [�0.30, 0.32].
Accumulation. Despite no evidence of a dyadic self-fulfilling
prophecy effect, there was still the possibility of an accumulation
effect. In fact, accumulation may sometimes be necessary for a
stereotype to have any self-fulfilling effect at all. In the current
data, for example, it was possible that the signal communicated by
the situational affordances was too weak to elicit a self-fulfilling
effect when only the expectations of individual perceivers were
considered, in which case targets might have ignored or discounted
the signal. To address this, a LSD contrast compared the amount of
candy taken by targets in the single- and double-overweight ex-
pectation conditions. It showed that targets took significantly more
candy in the double-overweight (M � 4.77, SD � 5.07) than
single-overweight (M � 2.99, SD � 3.62) expectation condition,
t(238) � 2.83, p � .005, 95% CI [0.54, 3.02], d � 0.45, 95% CI
[0.14, 0.76]. This result supports an accumulation effect because it
Table 1
Experiment 1: Perceivers’ Trait Judgments of the Target
Note. The df was 479 for willpower, self-control, outgoing, and intelligent, and 478 for religious. M � mean,
SD � standard deviation, d � Cohen’s d. Cohen’s d and the corresponding confidence intervals were calculated
with a script developed by Wuensch (2012).
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829CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
shows that targets more strongly confirmed the overweight stereo-
type when two perceivers believed the target was heavy than when
only one did.
Pattern of accumulation. Finally, the analyses explored the
pattern of the accumulation effect by testing for concurrent and
synergistic accumulation. Concurrent accumulation occurs when
multiple perceivers each have a unique, additive self-fulfilling
effect on a target’s behavior (Jussim et al., 1996). The data would
support concurrent accumulation if the degree to which targets
confirmed the overweight stereotype increased across the no-,
single-, and double-overweight expectation conditions, respec-
tively. As reported above, however, there was no significant dif-
ference in the amount of candy taken by targets in the no- and
single-overweight expectation conditions, thereby indicating no
support for concurrent accumulation.
Synergistic accumulation occurs when the self-fulfilling effects
of multiple perceivers are stronger in combination than their ad-
ditive effects would suggest (Madon et al., 2004). The data would
support synergistic accumulation if there was a larger increase in
targets’ confirmatory behavior between the single- and double-
overweight expectation conditions than between the no- and
single-overweight expectation conditions. The results reported
above confirmed this pattern. The difference between the amount
of candy taken in the double- versus the single-overweight expec-
tation conditions was larger in magnitude (d � 0.45, 95% CI [0.14,
0.76]) than the difference between the single- versus the no-
overweight expectation conditions (d � 0.01, 95% CI [�0.30,
0.32]), with neither effect size included within the confidence
interval of the other.
These results were verified with a stepwise regression analysis
using forward selection with two predictors: a linear term that
corresponded to the number of perceivers in a triad who believed
the target was heavy (i.e., 0, 1, and 2), and a quadratic term that
was the square of the linear term (i.e., 0, 1, and 4). A significant
and positive linear effect would support the presence of concurrent
accumulation. A significant and positive quadratic effect would
support the presence of synergistic accumulation. Because forward
selection enters variables into the model one at a time, leading with
the one that explains the greatest variance in the dependent vari-
able, it permitted the quadratic term to be considered prior to the
linear term, which is an appropriate analytic strategy under some
conditions (Rawlings, Pantula, & Dickey, 2001). In the current
research it was appropriate because neither accumulation process
had theoretical priority and each process could occur in combina-
tion with, or in the absence of, the other. In addition, because of
multicollinearity, artificially forcing the linear term as the first
predictor in the model would bias the test against the quadratic
term. The results indicated that the quadratic term explained a
significant proportion of variance in the amount of candy taken,
t � 3.15, p � .002, whereas the linear term did not meet the entry
criterion, t � 0.85, p � .398. This result confirms the presence of
synergistic, but not concurrent, accumulation.
Discussion
The results of Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that the
self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes can accumulate across perceiv-
ers. In Phase 1, individual perceivers selected bins of candy that
afforded the target a greater opportunity to confirm the overweight
stereotype when they believed the target was heavy versus thin. In
Phase 2, targets received a single bowl of candy that combined the
candy selections of two independent perceivers whose beliefs
about the target’s weight had been systematically varied. Because
of the way individual perceivers treated the target in Phase 1, this
procedure created a situation in which targets’ opportunity to
confirm the stereotype in Phase 2 was lowest in the no-overweight
expectation condition, intermediate in the single-overweight ex-
pectation condition, and greatest in the double-overweight expec-
tation condition. However, targets did not more strongly confirm
the stereotype in the single- than no-overweight expectation con-
dition despite a greater affordance to do so, thus providing no
evidence of the stereotype’s self-fulfilling effect within dyadic
relations.
Nevertheless, there was evidence of the stereotype’s cumulative
self-fulfilling effect. Targets behaviorally confirmed the over-
weight stereotype more strongly in the double- than single-
overweight expectation condition. One might wonder, however,
whether this result truly reflects the accumulation of the stereo-
type’s self-fulfilling effect or a mere artifact of the procedures.
That is, didn’t the tendency for perceivers to disproportionately
select bins that contained two (Bin 1) and four (Bin 2) pieces of
candy for a target whom they believed was thin create a ceiling
effect that limited how much candy targets in the no- and single-
overweight expectation conditions could take? And, if this hap-
pened, doesn’t it mean that these targets had no choice but to
confirm the overweight stereotype less than targets in the double-
overweight expectation condition? The answer to both questions
is no.
The greatest potential for a ceiling effect was in the no-
overweight expectation condition because it was here that targets
received the least amount of candy overall. However, even in this
condition targets received more candy than they elected to take. On
average, these targets took about three pieces of candy even though
nearly half of them received 22 pieces of candy or more, and none
received fewer than 6 pieces. Hence, the amount of candy targets
in the no-overweight expectation condition received did not se-
verely restrict how much candy they could take. In fact, had they
wanted to, they all could have taken the average amount of candy
taken by targets in the double-overweight expectation condition
(4.99 pieces), though generally they did not do so, and nearly half
of them could have taken the maximum amount of candy taken by
any target in the double-overweight expectation (20 pieces),
though none did.
In addition, if a ceiling effect had been responsible for the
results, then targets in the no-overweight expectation condition
should have taken less candy than targets in the single-overweight
expectation condition. But, that did not happen either. Despite that
targets in the no-overweight expectation condition received an
average of 10 fewer pieces of candy than targets in the single-
overweight expectation condition, the amount of candy targets
took in these conditions was nearly identical. Finally, in no case
were targets compelled to confirm the stereotype. Even in the
double-overweight expectation condition targets could have cho-
sen not to take any candy. The fact that few targets made this
choice indicates that targets in this condition confirmed the ste-
reotype even though they did not have to. On empirical grounds,
therefore, we conclude that ceiling effects cannot explain away the
support we obtained for accumulation.
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830 MADON ET AL.
Theoretical considerations also lead us to conclude that the
results reflected a bona fide accumulation effect. The amount of
candy targets received across the expectation conditions mattered.
Perceivers, acting on their stereotypic expectations, constructed a
situation that afforded some targets greater opportunity to confirm
the stereotype than others. Although this means that targets’ con-
firmatory behavior was somewhat dependent on perceivers’ be-
havior, this is no artifact; this is precisely the process hypothesized
to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. According to all theoretical
accounts, perceivers treating targets in line with their false expec-
tations is a necessary step of the self-fulfilling prophecy process
(e.g., Darley & Fazio, 1980). Thus, the dependency that existed
between perceivers’ and targets’ behavior in this experiment is an
inherent component of the underlying self-fulfilling prophecy pro-
cess and does not invalidate the support we found for accumula-
tion.
It is possible, however, that the dependency contributed to the
pattern of synergistic accumulation that characterized the data. The
amount of candy targets received increased across the no-, single-,
and double-overweight expectation conditions, but differences
between the conditions were not equal. On average, 10 pieces of
candy separated the no- and single-overweight expectation condi-
tions, whereas 15 pieces separated the single- and double-
overweight expectation conditions. Because of the inherent depen-
dency between perceivers’ and targets’ behavior, it is possible that
the upward trend in perceivers’ behavior caused the synergistic
pattern of accumulation that was present in targets’ confirmatory
behavior. Stated differently, it is conceivable that targets’ confir-
matory behavior might have evidenced concurrent accumulation
had perceivers’ behavior been linear.
The implication of this interpretation is that targets were passive
recipients of the situational affordances with which they were
provided. Although the present data cannot rule out this possi-
bility, targets are typically conceptualized as active players in
the self-fulfilling prophecy process (Snyder & Stukas, 1999). In
the current research, targets may have actively contributed to the
stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect through their con-
strual of the situational affordance. For example, targets in the
double-overweight expectation condition may have presumed that
they could take many pieces of candy without detection, or rea-
soned that there was no need to refrain since there was plenty of
candy to go around. Conversely, targets in the no- and single-
overweight expectation conditions might have assumed that any
candy they took would likely be noticed, or felt that they should
take only a few pieces so that others could have some too. Though
speculative, the idea that targets contributed to the stereotype’s
synergistic effects via construal processes fits current conceptual-
izations of the self-fulfilling prophecy, as well as a large body of
psychological research showing that people actively interpret so-
cial reality (Darley & Fazio, 1980; Fiske, 2004; Snyder & Stukas,
1999).
Finally, even though we observed synergistic accumulation with
a laboratory procedure that involved count-based behaviors, we are
disinclined to attribute the effect solely to the method. The reason
for our skepticism is that Madon et al. (2004) observed similar
results in a naturalistic study involving parents and their adolescent
children. We are not arguing that the same underlying process
necessarily operated in both studies. Because the two studies used
different methods, several processes that were prevented from
operating in the current research could have operated in Madon et
al.’s study. Nevertheless, the fact that both studies found evidence
of synergistic accumulation does suggest that the effect is not
merely a laboratory phenomenon dependent on count-based be-
haviors.
Overview of Experiments 2 and 3
Experiments 2 and 3 tested the accumulation hypothesis with
respect to sex stereotypes, and did so with a method first used in
the self-fulfilling prophecy research of Word et al. (1974). To
summarize, Word et al. performed two experiments that tested the
self-fulfilling effect of racial stereotypes on the interview perfor-
mance of job applicants. In the first experiment, White participants
interviewed either an African American or a White confederate
who posed as a job applicant. Consistent with the idea that stereo-
types can bias perceivers’ behavior toward targets, participants
used a less favorable interview style when interviewing the Afri-
can American than White confederate.
In the second experiment, White participants played the role of
the job applicant and White confederates played the role of the
interviewer. The interviewers were trained to use either the less
favorable interview style that participants in the first experiment
used when interviewing the African American confederate, or the
more favorable interview style that participants in the first exper-
iment used when interviewing the White confederate. The results
showed that participants in the second experiment performed
worse during the interview when they were subjected to the less
favorable than more favorable interview style. Thus, the way that
the African American confederates had been treated in the first
experiment undermined the interview performance of participants
in the second experiment.
The method Word et al. (1974) used is referred to as a double-
randomization design because it involved the sequential manipu-
lation of two variables (MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007).
First, Word et al. manipulated a job applicant’s race to test whether
racial stereotypes influenced perceivers’ interview style. Second,
they manipulated perceivers’ interview style to test whether it
influenced the interview performance of job applicants. Double-
randomization designs are valued because they experimentally test
the effect of a mediator variable, thereby ruling out alternative
explanations for the link between a prior manipulation and a
subsequently measured dependent variable (MacKinnon, Cheong,
& Pirlott, 2012; MacKinnon et al., 2007). With this strength in
mind, we used a double-randomization design in Experiments 2
and 3. In Experiment 2, we manipulated whether perceivers de-
veloped stereotype-consistent expectations about target to test
whether it influenced their tendency to provide the target with a
situational affordance that encouraged sex-typed behavior. In Ex-
periment 3, we manipulated the number of perceivers who pro-
vided a target with a situational affordance that encouraged sex-
typed behavior to test whether sex stereotypes had cumulative
self-fulfilling effects.
Experiment 2
Experiment 2 constituted the first half of our double-
randomization design. It tested whether sex stereotypes can lead
perceivers to provide targets with situational affordances that en-
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831CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
courage confirmation of the stereotype. Participants read about a
fictitious target who was described as a sex-typed woman, a
gender-neutral individual, or a sex-typed man. Afterward, partic-
ipants selected articles for the target to read from an article pool
that included a mix of sex-typed and gender-neutral articles. Par-
ticipants’ article selections indexed the degree to which they
provided the target with a situational affordance that encouraged
sex-typed behavior.
Method
Participants. Undergraduates (N � 123) at Rutgers Univer-
sity participated to fulfill a course requirement. There were 52
women and 71 men, including 10 African Americans, 29 Asians/
Asian Americans, 64 European Americans, 9 Latina/os, and 11
participants who self-described as “other.”
Experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to
one of three expectation conditions. In the feminine expectation
condition (n � 42), participants read a profile about a stereotypical
woman. In the gender-neutral expectation condition (n � 43),
participants read a profile about a gender-neutral, sex-unidentified
person. In the masculine expectation condition (n � 38), participants
read a profile about a stereotypical man. Although participants
believed the profile described another participant who would be
their partner during the experiment, the partner was actually fic-
titious. Accordingly, participants acted as perceivers, and the fic-
titious partner was the target.
Materials and measures.
Profile. A handwritten profile described the target’s name,
age, hobbies, and employment. In the feminine expectation con-
dition, the profile described a sex-typed target named Jessica who
enjoyed gymnastics and going shopping with friends, and who
worked as a babysitter in high school and at a cosmetics counter in
a department store during the summer. In the gender-neutral ex-
pectation condition, the profile described a gender-neutral target
named Jesse who enjoyed swimming and hanging out with friends,
and who worked as a cashier at a local grocery store in high school
and as a lifeguard during the summer. In the masculine expectation
condition, the profile described a sex-typed target named Michael
who enjoyed playing lacrosse and video games, and who worked
as a landscaper in high school and at a gas station during the
summer.
Perceiver behavior. To assess whether perceivers provided
the target with a situational affordance that encouraged confirma-
tion of sex stereotypes, perceivers selected three magazine and
newspaper articles for the target to read. Perceivers selected these
articles from one of two article pools. We used two article pools
rather than one to prepare for the procedures of
Experiment 3
which, as we describe later, required two separate and different
sets of articles to simulate the behavior of two independent per-
ceivers. The article pools both presented the titles and brief sum-
maries of nine articles, including three stereotypically feminine
articles, three gender-neutral articles, and three stereotypically
masculine articles that were matched for length. The stereotypi-
cally feminine articles dealt with fashion, relationships, and health
and beauty. The gender-neutral articles dealt with travel, food, and
entertainment. The stereotypically masculine articles dealt with
mechanics, science, and space exploration. We assigned a value
of �1 to each selected stereotypically feminine article, a value of
0 to each selected gender-neutral article, and a value of �1 to each
selected stereotypically masculine article, and then summed these
coded values to create a single value per perceiver. Higher values
indicated that perceivers selected a greater number of stereotypical
feminine articles for the target to read. We subsequently refer to
this variable as article selection.
Manipulation check. Two trait judgments assessed whether
the expectation manipulation induced stereotype-consistent expec-
tations: “How masculine vs. feminine is your partner?” and “How
manly vs. womanly is your partner?” Perceivers responded on
7-point scales with anchors 1 (very masculine; very manly), 4
(gender-neutral), and 7 (very feminine; very womanly). To reduce
suspicion, these questions were embedded among fillers that as-
sessed non-sex-typed trait judgments and interests. Responses to
the two sex-typed judgments were averaged to create a new
variable (� � .68). Higher values indicated greater perceived
femininity.
Suspicion check. Perceivers reported what they believed the
experiment was about.
Procedures. After obtaining informed consent, the experi-
menter described the study as an exploration into how well people
can predict the likes, dislikes, and abilities of another person about
whom they know little. Perceivers expected to meet with another
participant who would be their partner during the study. In antic-
ipation of the meeting, perceivers completed a survey that assessed
their name, age, hobbies, and employment under the guise that
their responses would be given to their partner (i.e., the fictitious
target) whom they believed was completing the same survey in
another room. After completing the survey, the experimenter col-
lected it, exited the room, and returned with what appeared to be
their partner’s survey, but which was actually the target’s profile.
Perceivers were told to study their partner’s survey because they
would use it to select activities for their partner to perform.
Perceivers then received an article pool from which they selected
three articles that they believed their partner would most enjoy
reading. The experimenter explained that the perceiver and partner
would later discuss how much the partner actually enjoyed reading
the selected articles. Perceivers subsequently completed the ma-
nipulation and suspicion checks, reported demographic informa-
tion, and were debriefed.
tive statistics.
Manipulation check. A one-way ANOVA followed by three
Tukey’s HSD contrasts tested whether the expectation manipula-
tion induced perceivers to hold stereotype-consistent expectations
about the target. The independent variable was the expectation
(feminine vs. gender-neutral vs. masculine). The dependent vari-
able was perceivers’ judgments of the target’s sex-typed traits. The
ANOVA results and pattern of means supported the manipula-
tion’s effectiveness. Perceivers judged the target as most feminine
in the feminine expectation condition (M � 4.88, SD � 1.12),
intermediately feminine in the gender-neutral expectation condi-
tion (M � 4.25, SD � 0.94), and least feminine in the masculine
expectation condition (M � 2.86, SD � 1.01), F(2, 120) � 42.90,
p � .001, �2 � .42, 90% CI [.30, .50]. These values all differed
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significantly from one another, ts(120) � 2.74, ps � .019, ds �
.61.
Suspicion check. There was one suspicious perceiver. Re-
moving this perceiver’s data did not meaningfully alter the results,
and the data were retained in all of the analyses.
Article pools. A 2 (article pool: pool one vs. pool two) 3
(expectation condition: feminine vs. gender-neutral vs. masculine)
ANOVA tested whether the two article pools differentially influ-
enced perceivers’ article selections. Because neither the main
effect of article pool nor the interaction between article pool and
expectation was significant, Fs(1, 117) � 1.59, ps � .209, both
�p
2 � 0.03, we omitted article pool as a factor in the main analyses.
Main analyses. A one-way ANOVA followed by three
Tukey’s HSD contrasts tested whether perceivers afforded the
target a greater opportunity to confirm sex stereotypes when the
target was sex-typed versus gender-neutral. The independent vari-
able was the expectation (feminine vs. gender-neutral vs. mascu-
line). The dependent variable was article selection. The results
showed that the number of stereotypically feminine articles
selected by perceivers was highest in the feminine expectation
condition (M � 1.64, SD � 1.48), intermediate in the gender-
neutral expectation condition (M � 0.16, SD � 1.28), and lowest
in the masculine expectation condition (M � �2.00, SD � 0.87),
F(2, 120) � 93.70, p � .001, �2 � .61, 90% CI [.52, .67], with
these values all differing significantly from one another: Feminine
versus gender-neutral expectation conditions, t(120) � 5.38, p �
.001, 95% CI [0.83, 2.14], d � 1.20, 95% CI [0.73, 1.67]; Femi-
nine versus masculine expectation conditions, t(120) � 13.61, p �
.001, 95% CI [3.01, 4.28], d � 2.95, 95% CI [2.38, 3.51]; Gender-
neutral versus masculine expectation conditions, t(120) � 7.85,
p � .001, 95% CI [1.51, 2.81], d � 1.75, 95% CI [1.26, 2.23].
Table 2 reports the average number of stereotypically feminine,
gender-neutral, and stereotypically masculine articles selected in
each expectation condition.
Because the number of women and men was not equal across
the expectation conditions, we also examined whether perceivers’
sex could account for the results, but found no evidence to support
its influence. Neither the main effect of perceiver sex nor the
Expectation Perceiver sex interaction had a significant effect on
perceivers’ article selections, Fs � 2.36, ps � .127, all �p2 � .03,
and in no case did the inclusion of perceiver sex meaningfully alter
either the pattern or significance of the expectation’s effect. We
also analyzed the data separately for women and men and found
virtually identical results to those produced by the full sample.
Discussion
Perceivers in this experiment selected the greatest number of
stereotypically feminine articles for Jessica, the sex-typed femi-
nine target, the greatest number of stereotypically masculine arti-
cles for Michael, the sex-typed masculine target, and an interme-
diate number of sex-typed articles for Jesse, the gender-neutral
target. These results clearly show that perceivers afforded the
sex-typed targets greater opportunity to confirm sex stereotypes
than they afforded the gender-neutral target. However, the cause of
this effect is less clear. Because the procedures paired a sex-typed
name with stereotype-consistent attributes in the feminine and
masculine expectation conditions, perceivers’ article selections
could have been influenced by sex stereotypes, or the target’s
stereotype-consistent attributes. If it is the latter, then perhaps
Experiment 2 is more about target-based expectations than
stereotype-based expectations. For three reasons, we do not be-
lieve this to be the case.
First, the congruence between the target’s sex and the target’s
stereotype-consistent attributes likely provided perceivers with
strong justification to apply their stereotypes when making their
article selections (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003; Fazio, 1990; Ma-
don, Guyll, Hilbert, Kyriakatos, & Vogel, 2006). Second, the
amount of stereotype-consistent attributes provided to perceivers
was rather modest, which likely limited its influence even if
perceivers were motivated to form target-based impressions.
Third, we observed the same pattern in Experiment 1 even though
the target’s attributes were held constant across the expectation
conditions. These considerations suggest that perceivers in the
current experiment likely relied on sex stereotypes to make their
article selections. However, because this experiment cannot tease
apart the relative influence of the target’s sex and the target’s
attributes, it remains possible that different results might have
emerged had the procedures varied only the target’s sex.
Experiment 3
Experiment 3 constituted the second half of our double-
randomization design. Whereas Experiment 2 showed that indi-
vidual perceivers provided sex-typed targets with a situational
affordance that encouraged confirmation of sex stereotypes, Ex-
periment 3 examined whether these affordances, if imposed by
multiple perceivers, can cause the stereotype to have cumulative
self-fulfilling effects. The experiment manipulated the number of
perceivers who provided participants with a sex-typed situational
Table 2
Experiment 2: Average Number of Stereotypically Feminine, Gender-Neutral, and Stereotypically
Masculine Articles Perceivers Selected for the Target
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833CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
affordance. Participants received a set of articles that they were
told had been chosen for them by two participants who would be
their partners during the experiment. The number of sex-typed and
gender-neutral articles in the sets was varied to simulate the
behavior of two perceivers from Experiment 2. The number of
sex-typed articles participants selected to read indexed the degree
to which they confirmed sex stereotypes.
Method
Participants. Undergraduates (N � 121) at Rutgers Univer-
sity participated to fulfill a course requirement. There were 65
women and 56 men. Race was not assessed.
Design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of five
conditions that manipulated the number of perceivers who pro-
vided them with a sex-typed situational affordance. In two condi-
tions, two perceivers provided participants with a situational af-
fordance that encouraged confirmation of the stereotype of women
(double-feminine, n � 26) or men (double-masculine, n � 25). In
two other conditions, one perceiver provided participants with a
situational affordance that encouraged confirmation of the ste-
reotype of women (single-feminine, n � 25) or men (single-
masculine, n � 20), whereas the other perceiver provided a situ-
ational affordance that discouraged confirmation of sex
stereotypes. In the gender-neutral condition (n � 25), two per-
ceivers provided participants with a situational affordance that
discouraged confirmation of sex stereotypes. To manipulate these
affordances, participants received one of five article sets that
included different numbers of sex-typed and gender-neutral arti-
cles, and selected three to read. Hence, the participants acted as
targets, and even though the two perceivers with whom they were
paired were fictitious, the number of sex-typed and gender-neutral
articles included in the article sets were based on the average
article selections of perceivers in Experiment 2.
Materials and measures.
Article sets. Five article sets manipulated the situational af-
fordances perceivers provided targets. Each article set showed the
titles and brief summaries of six magazine and newspaper articles.
The six articles in each set simulated the behavior of two perceiv-
ers, each of whom ostensibly had selected three articles for the
target to read. We varied the number of sex-typed articles in the
sets based on the results of Experiment 2 (see Table 2). Specifi-
cally, we rounded the average article selections of perceivers in the
feminine and masculine expectation conditions of Experiment 2 to
the nearest integer, and then paired these rounded values in dif-
ferent permutations to simulate the behavior of two perceivers
combined. We set the remaining articles to be gender-neutral.
For example, consider the article sets used in the double- and
single-feminine conditions. Table 2 reports that perceivers in the
stereotypically feminine expectation condition of Experiment 2 se-
lected an average of 2 stereotypically feminine articles and 0.36
stereotypically masculine articles. To create the article set for the
double-feminine condition in Experiment 3, we rounded these values
to two and zero, respectively, and then doubled them to create an
article set that included four stereotypically feminine articles and zero
stereotypically masculine articles. We added two gender-neutral arti-
cles to complete the set of six. This article set simulated the behavior
of two independent perceivers, both of whom held a stereotypic
expectation about the target.
We did not double the rounded values when creating the article
set for the single-feminine condition because it was intended to
simulate the behavior of a single perceiver who held a stereotypic
expectation about the target. Thus, it included two stereotypically
feminine articles, zero stereotypically masculine articles, plus four
gender-neutral articles to complete the set of six. The same pro-
cedures created the remaining article sets: (a) double-masculine:
zero stereotypically feminine articles, four stereotypically mascu-
line articles, and two gender-neutral articles; (b) single-masculine:
zero stereotypically feminine articles, two stereotypically mascu-
line articles, and four gender-neutral articles; and (c) gender-
neutral: one stereotypically feminine article, one stereotypically
masculine article, and four gender-neutral articles.
We used these procedures for three reasons. First, because
perceivers in Experiment 2 could not select a fraction of an article
for the target to read, rounding the average values to the nearest
integer best represented the behavior a single perceiver acting
independently. Likewise, combining the rounded values best rep-
resented the combined behavior of two perceivers acting indepen-
dently. Second, because the rounded values always equaled the
modal response, they also best represented the typical behavior of
individual perceivers in the stereotypically feminine and stereo-
typically masculine expectation conditions of Experiment 2. Fi-
nally, we set all of the remaining articles in the article sets to be
gender-neutral so that all targets in the current experiment, even
those in the double-feminine and double-masculine conditions,
could predominantly disconfirm sex stereotypes.
In considering these procedures, it might seem that targets in the
current experiment should have had stereotypically masculine ar-
ticles to select in the double- and single-feminine conditions, and
stereotypically feminine articles to select in the double- and single-
masculine conditions. In fact, however, the article sets represented
a faithful transmission of the restricted situational affordances
perceivers in Experiment 2 had provided the sex-typed targets.
Although we could have used less restricted situational affor-
dances than did perceivers in Experiment 2, doing so would have
disrupted a key step of the self-fulfilling prophecy process—
perceivers treating targets in line with their false expectations—
and undermined the effect that we were trying to capture in the
second half of our double-randomization design. The procedure we
used to create the article sets avoided this problem.
Target behavior. Targets selected three articles to read from
the six article set.
Profile. Targets completed a profile about themselves (name,
age, hobbies, employment) that they believed would be given to
their partners, reinforcing the cover story that the six articles in the
set had been given to them by their partners.
Suspicion check. Targets described what they believed the
experiment was about.
Procedures. The procedures matched those from Experiment
2 with these exceptions. Targets expected to be paired with two
other participants who would be their partners during the experi-
ment. Targets were told that their partners were using their profiles
to design activities for them, the first of which involved reading
three magazine and newspaper articles from a set of six articles
that had been chosen for them by their partners from a larger pool
of articles on a variety of topics. Targets expected to discuss how
much they enjoyed reading the articles with their partners later in
the experiment. Targets then received the six articles that their
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834 MADON ET AL.
partners had supposedly chosen for them, and selected three to
read. Afterward, targets completed the suspicion check, provided
demographic information, and were then debriefed.
tive statistics.
Suspicion check. There were four suspicious targets. Remov-
ing their data from the analyses did not meaningfully alter the
results, and their data were retained in all of the analyses.
Main analyses. Perceivers in Experiment 2 provided sex-
typed targets with a situational affordance that encouraged confir-
mation of sex stereotypes. In the current research, a series of
analyses tested whether these situational affordances, if imposed
by multiple perceivers, can cause sex stereotypes to have cumu-
lative self-fulfilling effects on targets’ behavior. To allow for the
possibility that the stereotypes of women and men might evidence
different effects, the analyses separately analyzed the feminine and
masculine conditions.
Participant behavior. Two, separate, one-way ANOVAs
tested whether the number of perceivers who provided targets with
a sex-typed situational affordance influenced how strongly targets
confirmed sex stereotypes. One ANOVA focused on the stereotype
of women. It examined how many stereotypically feminine articles
targets selected in the double-feminine, single-feminine, and gender-
neutral conditions. The other ANOVA focused on the stereotype of
men. It examined how many stereotypically masculine articles
targets selected in the double-masculine, single-masculine, and
gender-neutral conditions. Both ANOVAs were significant: for the
stereotype of women, F(2, 73) � 23.28, p � .001, �2 � .39, 90%
CI [.23, .49]; for the stereotype of men, F(2, 67) � 50.11, p �
.001, �2 � .60, 90% CI [.46, .68]. These results indicate that the
number of perceivers who provided targets with a sex-typed situ-
ational affordance influenced how strongly targets confirmed sex
stereotypes.
Self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Next, two LSD contrasts
tested whether the stereotypes of women and men had dyadic
self-fulfilling effects. The contrast relevant to the stereotype of
women compared the number of stereotypically feminine articles
selected by targets in the gender-neutral and single-feminine con-
ditions. The contrast relevant to the stereotype of men compared
the number of stereotypically masculine articles selected by targets
in the gender-neutral and single-masculine conditions. The results
indicated that targets selected significantly more stereotypically
feminine articles in the single-feminine than gender-neutral con-
dition, t(73) � 4.41, p � .001, 95% CI [0.44, 1.16], d � 1.25, 95%
CI [0.65, 1.83], and significantly more stereotypically masculine
articles in the single-masculine than gender-neutral condition,
t(69) � 2.34 p � .022, 95% CI [0.06, 0.80], d � 0.70, 95% CI
[0.10, 1.30]. Table 3 presents the means. Thus, targets confirmed
sex stereotypes more strongly when one perceiver provided them
with a sex-typed situational affordance than when no perceiver had
done so. These results replicate prior research showing that ste-
reotypes can have self-fulfilling effects within dyadic relations
(Snyder et al., 1977; Word et al., 1974).
Accumulation. Two additional LSD contrasts tested whether
the stereotypes of women and men had cumulative self-fulfilling
effects. One contrast compared the number of stereotypically fem-
inine articles selected by targets in the single- and double-feminine
conditions. The other contrast compared the number of stereotypi-
cally masculine articles selected by targets in the single- and
double-masculine conditions. The results showed that targets se-
lected significantly more stereotypically feminine articles in the
double-feminine than single-feminine condition, t(73) � 2.27, p �
.026, 95% CI [0.05, 0.77], d � 0.64, 95% CI [0.08, 1.19], and
significantly more stereotypically masculine articles in the double-
masculine than single-masculine condition, t(67) � 6.80, p � .001,
95% CI [0.88, 1.62], d � 2.04, 95% CI [1.35, 2.72]. Table 3
presents the means. These results support the accumulation hy-
pothesis because they show that targets confirmed sex stereotypes
more strongly when two perceivers provided them with a sex-
typed situational affordance than when only one did.
Pattern of accumulation. Additional analyses explored the
pattern of these accumulation effects. For the stereotype of
women, the data would support concurrent accumulation if targets
selected an increasingly greater number of stereotypical feminine
articles across the gender-neutral, single-feminine, and double-
feminine conditions, respectively. Parallel increases in targets’
selection of stereotypically masculine articles across the gender-
neutral, single-masculine, and double-masculine conditions would
support concurrent accumulation for the stereotype of men. The
fact that the contrasts reported above supported the significance of
Table 3
Experiment 3: Average Number of Stereotypically Feminine, Gender-Neutral, and Stereotypically
Masculine Articles Targets Selected to Read
Note. M � mean; SD � standard deviation.
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835CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000142.supp
these comparisons suggests that concurrent accumulation was
present for both stereotypes.
Because concurrent and synergistic accumulation can occur
simultaneously, the analyses also tested whether the stereotypes
evidenced synergistic accumulation. The results would support
synergistic accumulation for the stereotype of women if the dif-
ference between the number of stereotypically feminine articles
selected by targets in the double-feminine versus single-feminine
conditions was larger in magnitude than the difference between the
number of stereotypically feminine articles selected by targets in
the single-feminine versus gender-neutral conditions. A parallel
pattern of differences in targets’ selection of masculine articles in
the gender-neutral, single-masculine, and double-masculine con-
ditions would support the presence of synergistic accumulation for
the stereotype of men.
The results did not support synergistic accumulation for the
stereotype of women. In fact, the pattern was in the opposite
direction. As reported above, the magnitude of the difference
between the double- and single-feminine conditions was smaller
(d � 0.64, 95% CI [0.08, 1.19]) than the magnitude of the
difference between the single-feminine and gender-neutral condi-
tions (d � 1.25, 95% CI [0.65, 1.83]). A forward selection regres-
sion analysis confirmed this result. Whereas a linear term corre-
sponding to the number of perceivers who provided targets with a
feminine sex-typed situational affordance (i.e., 0, 1, and 2) ex-
plained a significant proportion of variance in the number of
stereotypically feminine articles selected by targets, t � 6.68, p �
.001, a quadratic term that was the square of the linear term (i.e.,
0, 1, and 4) did not meet the entry criterion, t � 1.25, p � .214.
Thus, the stereotype of women evidenced concurrent, but not
synergistic, accumulation.
By contrast, the stereotype of men did evidence synergistic
accumulation. As reported above, the magnitude of the difference
between the double- and single-masculine conditions was larger
(d � 2.04, 95% CI [1.35, 2.72]) than the magnitude of the
difference between the single-masculine and gender-neutral con-
ditions (d � 0.70, 95% CI [0.10, 1.30]), with neither effect size
included within the confidence interval of the other. Moreover, a
forward-selection stepwise regression analysis that included a lin-
ear term corresponding to the number of perceivers who provided
targets with a masculine sex-typed situational affordance (i.e., 0, 1,
and 2), and a quadratic term that was the square of the linear term
(i.e., 0, 1, and 4) indicated that the quadratic term explained a
significant proportion of variance in the number of stereotypically
masculine articles selected, t � 10.09, p � .001, whereas the linear
term did not meet the entry criterion, t � 0.60, p � .953. This
result helps to clarify the contrast results reported above for the
stereotype of men; although differences between the means sug-
gested the presence of concurrent accumulation, those differences
were predominantly driven by a strong quadratic effect indicative
of synergistic accumulation. Synergistic accumulation, therefore,
best characterized the stereotype of men.
Participant sex. Because there were not equal numbers of
women and men in the conditions, target sex was added to the
ANOVAs described above to test whether it could account for the
results. The main effect of target sex was significant, with women
selecting significantly more stereotypically feminine articles than
men (Ms � 1.43 vs. 1.11) and fewer stereotypically masculine
articles than men (Ms � 0.88 vs. 1.73), Fs � 14.05, ps � .001,
both �p2 � .17. However, target sex never interacted with the
experimental manipulation, Fs � 1.37, ps � .260, both �p2 � .04,
nor did its inclusion meaningfully alter the manipulation’s effect.
We also reanalyzed the data separately for women and men and
found virtually identical results to those produced by the full
sample.
Discussion
Experiment 3 showed that targets confirmed sex-stereotypes
more strongly when two perceivers provided them with a sex-
typed situational affordance than when only one had. Because the
results were the product of a double-randomization design, they
also showed that a main reason targets in Experiment 3 confirmed
sex stereotypes was because they were encouraged to do so by the
situational affordances that perceivers in Experiment 2 constructed
for them. Indeed, a primary way that perceivers are hypothesized
to elicit confirmatory behavior from targets is by constructing
situations that afford them opportunities and constraints that en-
courage an expectancy-consistent response. Our results were con-
sistent with this hypothesized mechanism.
Of course, if the situational affordances were so restrictive that
they prevented targets from disconfirming the stereotypes, then the
observed effects would not be particularly interesting. However,
this was not the case. All targets in Experiment 3 could have
predominantly disconfirmed sex stereotypes. For example, targets
in the single-feminine and single-masculine conditions could have
chosen all gender-neutral articles, thus avoiding the sex-typed
articles entirely, and targets in the double-feminine and double-
masculine conditions were not required to select more than a single
sex-typed article. In no case, therefore, were targets compelled to
confirm sex stereotypes. Nevertheless, they did confirm sex ste-
reotypes and, critically, they did so more than the situational
affordances required.
Although the data cannot explain why the situational affor-
dances had this effect, it may have to do with the way that targets
construed the situation (Darley & Fazio, 1980; Snyder & Stukas,
1999). Targets believed that their partners had chosen articles for
them on the basis of their profiles, and expected to discuss with
their partners how much they enjoyed reading a subset of them.
Thus, in targets’ minds, the articles appeared to reflect their
partners’ perceptions of them, and the articles they chose to read
appeared to have interpersonal consequences. Given these param-
eters, targets might have gone along with the situational affor-
dances for two reasons.
First, targets’ belief that their partners selected articles for them
to read on the basis of their profiles may have led them to engage
in a process akin to the confirmation bias; they may have read the
article summaries with an eye toward seeing how their interests
aligned with the articles, a strategy that may have caused them to
see connections that they otherwise would have missed. In turn,
these connections may have increased their willingness to read
sex-typed articles that they might have rejected under different
circumstances. Second, targets may have wanted to affiliate with
their partners in the anticipated meeting and perceived this goal to
be more achievable if they chose the most prevalent type of
article in the article sets. For example, targets in the double-
feminine condition may have selected to read more stereotypi-
cally feminine articles than required to make the anticipated meet-
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836 MADON ET AL.
ing go more smoothly. This interpretation is consistent with the
established finding that targets are more susceptible to self-
fulfilling prophecies when they are motivated to get along with
perceivers (Snyder & Stukas, 1999).
Experiment 4
Experiments 1, 2, and 3 supported the hypothesis that the
self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes can accumulate across perceiv-
ers. Perceivers treated targets in stereotypic ways, and the greater
the number of perceivers who did so, the more strongly targets
confirmed a stereotype. We performed Experiment 4 to examine a
potential downstream consequence of this effect: Once the cumu-
lative self-fulfilling effect of a stereotype has been set in motion,
it may influence the impressions that new perceivers form about a
target, thereby bringing the self-fulfilling prophecy process full
circle. One process through which this could occur is the funda-
mental attribution error (Jones & Davis, 1965; Ross, 1977).
Perceivers do not always take situational factors into account as
much as they should when trying to understand the causes of a
target’s behavior. Instead, they tend to assume that a target’s
behavior corresponds to an underlying disposition. Perceivers’
tendency to discount situational factors in favor of correspondent
inferences may perpetuate a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling
effect in the following way: New perceivers who observe a target
behave in a stereotypic way may misattribute the behavior to an
underlying disposition when it was actually caused by a stereo-
type’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect. Such a tendency might
even occur among perceivers who are aware that prior perceivers
encouraged the target’s stereotypic behavior. After all, some of the
earliest attribution research established that perceivers make cor-
respondent inferences about targets who they know lacked free
choice (Jones & Harris, 1967). This finding raises the possibility
that new perceivers will assume that targets’ behavior reflects their
dispositions even when they know that the behavior was shaped by
the actions of others. Consistent with this possibility, we tested two
interrelated hypotheses in Experiment 4.
One hypothesis was that a stereotype’s self-fulfilling effect can
influence the way new perceivers judge targets. Although this is
not the first time such an effect has been examined (Snyder &
Swann, 1978), it does underscore a theoretically important point
that has been overlooked; perceivers who judge targets solely on
the basis of individuating information (a process referred to as
individuation) may develop stereotypic impressions when targets’
individuating information was caused by a stereotype’s self-
fulfilling effect (Jussim, 2012). Thus, individuation (which, by
definition, involves no stereotyping) can cause perceivers to form
stereotypic impressions, thereby setting the stage for future restric-
tions on targets’ opportunities.
The other hypothesis was that perceivers do not appropriately
adjust their impressions even when they know that targets’ stereo-
typic behavior was shaped by the actions of others. This hypothesis
represents a novel test of the fundamental attribution error because
it conceptualizes it as a mechanism through which a stereotype’s
cumulative self-fulfilling effect can transcend social interactions.
We tested these hypotheses with respect to sex stereotypes, focus-
ing on the common beliefs that women and men have different
personality traits, academic competencies, career aptitudes, and
suitability for careers (Haines, Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016).
Method
Participants. Undergraduates (N � 230) at Rutgers Univer-
sity participated to fulfill a course requirement. There were 138
women, 90 men, and 2 participants who omitted a response,
including 16 African Americans, 65 Asians/Asian Americans, 112
European Americans, 15 Latina/os, 19 participants who reported
“other,” and 3 participants who omitted a response.
Design. Participants were randomly assigned to a 5 (target
behavior: strong-feminine vs. moderate-feminine vs. gender-
neutral vs. moderate-masculine vs. strong-masculine) 2 (situa-
tional awareness: aware vs. unaware) between-subjects experimen-
tal design. Target behavior manipulated how strongly a target
confirmed sex stereotypes by varying the number of stereotypi-
cally feminine and masculine articles the target selected to read
from a group of articles that afforded sex-typed behavior to vary-
ing degrees. Situational awareness manipulated whether partici-
pants were made aware of the situational affordances that gave rise
to the target’s article selections. Although the target was fictitious,
participants believed the target would be their partner during the
experiment, and the target’s article selections, though experimen-
tally manipulated, were based on the average article selections of
participants in Experiment 3. Therefore, participants acted as per-
ceivers and the fictitious partner was the target.
Materials and measures.
Article selection lists. Five article selection lists manipulated
target behavior. Each list included the titles and brief summaries of
three magazine and newspaper articles that the target had purport-
edly selected to read. The number of stereotypically feminine,
gender-neutral, and stereotypically masculine articles in the lists
matched the average number of stereotypically feminine, gender
neutral, and stereotypically masculine articles, rounded to the
nearest integer, that had been selected by targets in the five
conditions of Experiment 3. For example, Table 3 shows that
targets in the double-feminine condition of Experiment 3 chose an
average of 1.81 stereotypically feminine articles, 1.15 gender-
neutral articles, and 0 stereotypically masculine articles. These
values were rounded to the nearest integer to create the article
selection list for the strong-feminine condition in the current
experiment: two stereotypically feminine articles, one gender-
neutral article, and zero stereotypically masculine articles.
The same procedure created the remaining article selection lists:
(a) strong-masculine condition: zero stereotypically feminine arti-
cles, one gender-neutral article, and two stereotypically masculine
articles; (b) moderate-feminine condition: one stereotypically fem-
inine article, two gender-neutral articles, and zero stereotypically
masculine articles; (c) moderate-masculine condition: zero stereo-
typically feminine articles, two gender-neutral articles, and one
stereotypically masculine article; (d) gender-neutral condition: one
stereotypically feminine article, two gender-neutral articles, and
one stereotypically masculine article. Note that the absence of
counterstereotypic articles in the strong and moderate conditions
was a direct consequence of perceivers’ behavior in Experiment 2.
That is, because perceivers in Experiment 2 overwhelmingly chose
not to select any counterstereotypic articles for the sex-typed
targets to read, targets in Experiment 3 had none to select in any
but the gender-neutral condition. The behavior of perceivers in
Experiment 2, therefore, had a cascading effect that was repre-
sented here in the target’s article selections.
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837CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
Articles. The experiment manipulated situational awareness
by giving perceivers in the aware and unaware conditions different
information about the group of articles from which the target
selected three to read. Perceivers in the aware conditions received
one of the five article sets from Experiment 3, all of which
conveyed the target’s restricted choices: In the strong-feminine
condition they received the article set from the double-feminine
condition of Experiment 3 (four stereotypically feminine articles,
two gender-neutral articles, and zero stereotypically masculine
articles). In the strong-masculine condition they received the arti-
cle set from the double-masculine condition of Experiment 3 (zero
stereotypically feminine articles, two gender-neutral articles, and
four stereotypically masculine articles). In the moderate-feminine
and moderate-masculine conditions they received the article sets
from the single-feminine (two stereotypically feminine articles,
four gender-neutral articles, and zero stereotypically masculine)
or single-masculine (zero stereotypically feminine articles, four
gender-neutral articles, and two stereotypically masculine arti-
cles) conditions of Experiment 3, respectively. In the gender-
neutral condition they received the article set from the gender-
neutral condition of Experiment 3 (one stereotypically feminine
article, four gender-neutral articles, and one stereotypically mas-
culine article). Perceivers in the unaware conditions received the
18-article pool given to perceivers in Experiment 2 (six stereotypi-
cally feminine, six gender-neutral, six stereotypically masculine
articles). Because these articles reflected diverse interests, they
gave the impression that the target had considerable choice when
selecting which three articles to read.
Measures.
Perceiver judgments. Perceivers judged the target along four
dimensions that are relevant to sex stereotypes, including sex-
typed traits, general academic competency, aptitude in the tradi-
tionally masculine fields of math and science, and career suitabil-
ity.
Sex-typed traits. Ten questions assessed perceivers’ judg-
ments of the target’s sex-typed traits. Two questions used a 7-point
bipolar scale to assess how gentle versus rough and emotional
versus logical they judged the target with anchors 1 (very gentle or
very emotional) and 7 (very rough or very logical). The rest used
a 7-point response scale with anchors 1 (not at all) and 7 (very) to
assess the degree to perceivers judged the target to possess four
stereotypically feminine traits (attuned to others feelings, femi-
nine, sensitive, and submissive), and four stereotypically mascu-
line traits (confident, masculine, independent, and assertive). Re-
sponses were reverse scored as necessary and then averaged to
create one score per perceiver (� � .76). Higher scores reflected
the perception that the target possessed more stereotypically fem-
inine traits.
General academic competency. Four questions assessed per-
ceivers’ judgments of the target’s general academic competency:
(a) How strong is your partner’s overall academic performance?
(b) Would your partner be confident in her or his general academic
abilities? (c) How intelligent is your partner?, and (d) How smart
do you consider your partner? Perceivers responded on 7-point
scales with anchors 1 (not at all) and 7 (very). Responses were
averaged to create one score per perceiver (� � .88), with higher
values reflecting the perception that the target had greater general
academic competency.
Aptitude in math and science. Four questions assessed per-
ceivers’ judgments of the target’s aptitude in the domains of math
and science: (a) Would your partner be confident in her or his math
abilities? (b) Would your partner be confident in her or his scien-
tific abilities? (c) Would your partner be good at math?, and (d)
Would your partner be good at science? Perceivers responded on
7-point scales with anchors 1 (not at all) and 7 (very). Responses
were averaged to create one score per perceiver (� � .90). Higher
values reflected the perception that the target had more aptitude for
these traditionally masculine domains.
Career suitability. To assess perceivers’ judgments of the
target’s career-suitability, perceivers answered four questions rel-
evant to careers with sex-typed subspecialties. For example, one
question asked “ If your partner was a doctor, would she or he be
better at surgery or dermatology?” Perceivers responded to this
question on a 7-point scale with anchors 1 (surgery) and 7 (der-
matology). The other careers and subspecialties were high school
teacher (science teacher vs. English teacher), trades person (me-
chanic vs. hair-stylist), and sales person (car sales person vs.
cosmetic sales person). The subspecialties of dermatology, English
teacher, hairstylist, and cosmetic sales person corresponded to
feminine sex-typed subspecialties. Responses were averaged to
create one score per perceiver (� � .86). Higher values indicated
that perceivers judged the target as better-suited for stereotypically
feminine careers.
Manipulation checks. Seven questions assessed whether per-
ceivers had adequately attended to the target’s article selections.
One question asked perceivers to freely recall the titles of the
target’s article selections. The other six questions used a multiple-
choice format to assess perceivers’ memory for the article sum-
maries, which described the three articles selected by the target.
Each multiple-choice question had only one correct response.
Responses to the multiple-choice questions were coded as 0 (in-
correct) or 1 (correct) and then summed to create one variable per
perceiver that equaled the total number of correct responses.
Suspicion check. Perceivers reported what they believed the
experiment was about.
Procedures. The procedures matched those from Experiment
3 with these exceptions. Perceivers expected to receive informa-
tion about activities their partner had performed, and to judge their
partner’s interests, characteristics, and abilities. Following this
cover story, perceivers were told that their partner had already
received the titles and brief summaries of a set of magazine and
newspaper articles and, from this set, had chosen three articles to
read. Perceivers then received information about the articles that
had ostensibly been available for their partner to choose, and an
article selection list that showed the three articles their partner
ultimately selected to read. Perceivers next judged their partner on
the four stereotype-relevant dimensions, after which they com-
pleted the manipulation and suspicion checks, and were then
debriefed.
tive statistics.
Manipulation checks. There were 211 perceivers (93%) who
correctly listed all three article titles, 159 (69%) who correctly
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838 MADON ET AL.
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answered all six multiple choice questions concerning these arti-
cles, and 149 (65%) who scored perfectly on both measures.
Although a few perceivers correctly listed either zero (n � 9, 4%)
or one (n � 3, 1%) article title, these perceivers still performed
reasonably well on the multiple choice questions, answering at
least four of the six questions correctly. Thus, perceivers had
adequately attended to the target’s article selections.
Suspicion check. There were four suspicious perceivers. Re-
moving their data did not meaningfully alter the results, and their
data were retained in all of the analyses.
Main analyses. The data were first analyzed with a 5 (target
behavior) 2 (situational awareness) MANOVA in which the
dependent variables were judgments of the target’s sex-typed
traits, general academic competency, aptitude in math and science,
and career suitability. There was a substantial main effect for target
behavior, Wilks’
� .374, F(16, 642.20) � 15.25, p � .001, �p2 �
.22. Neither the main effect of situational awareness, Wilks’
�
.992, F(4, 210) � 0.41, p � .800, �p2 � .01, nor the Target
behavior Situational awareness interaction, Wilks’
� .944,
F(16, 642.20) � 0.76, p � .733, �p2 � .01, achieved significance.
Four ANOVAs replicated these results (Supplemental Table 6),
and yielded significant linear relations between target behavior and
each dependent variable, ts � 7.30, ps � .001. Tukey’s HSD
contrasts further supported these linear trends (Supplemental Table
7). Table 4 presents the means for target behavior.
These results reveal two clear patterns. First, perceivers judged
the target as having more stereotypically feminine characteristics
and abilities the greater the number of stereotypically feminine
articles selected by the target. Second, this effect was even present
among perceivers who were made aware of the target’s con-
strained choices. These results support the hypotheses that a ste-
reotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect can have ripple effects
that influence the way new perceivers judge a target, and that these
ripple effects are not mitigated by perceivers’ awareness that a
target’s behavior was shaped by the actions of others.
Because there were not equal numbers of women and men in the
10 conditions, perceiver sex was added to the MANOVA de-
scribed above to examine its effect. There was a significant main
effect of perceiver sex, Wilks’
� .951, F(4, 199) � 2.54, p �
.041, �p2 � .05, and a marginally significant Perceiver sex
Target behavior Situational awareness interaction, Wilks’
�
.887, F(16, 608.59) � 1.52, p � .088, �p2 � .03. Follow-up
ANOVAs yielded a significant main effect of perceiver sex:
Women judged the target as having fewer stereotypically feminine
sex-typed traits than did men (Ms � 3.94 vs. 4.18), F(1, 203) �
8.64, p � .004, �p2 � .04. The ANOVAs also yielded two mar-
ginally significant interactions: In the unaware condition, women
judged the target as having somewhat more general academic
competency than did men, (Ms � 5.02 vs. 4.70), F(1, 204) � 2.76,
p � .098, �p2 � .01. In the strong-feminine condition, women
judged the target as somewhat better-suited for stereotypically
feminine careers than did men (Ms � 6.01 vs. 5.32), F(4, 206) �
2.15, p � .076, �p2 � .04. In no case, however, did perceiver sex
meaningfully alter the effects of target behavior or situational
awareness. Additional ANOVAs that examined the data of women
and men separately produced results that were nearly identical to
those produced by the full sample. Supplemental Figure 1a–1d
presents scatter plots of women’s and men’s judgments across the
five experimental conditions of target behavior.
Discussion
The results of Experiment 4 broadly confirmed the hypothesis
that a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect can influence
how targets are viewed by others. Perceivers judged a target
according to the target’s behavior, inferring that a target who
confirmed the stereotype of women generally had stereotypically
feminine traits and abilities, and that a target who confirmed the
stereotype of men generally had stereotypically masculine traits
and abilities. Importantly, perceivers made these correspondent
inferences even when they were privy to the situational affor-
dances that gave rise to the target’s behavior. Although one might
wonder whether this tendency reflects a failure of perceivers to
notice the situational affordances more than a failure to take them
into account, the well-established tendency for people to make
correspondent inferences about others whom they know lacked
free choice suggests that perceivers fell prey to the fundamental
attribution error when judging the target.
We also want to emphasize that a failure of perceivers to take
the situational affordances into account is not merely a replication
of the fundamental attribution error. Because the experiment fo-
cused exclusively on behaviors that had been elicited by a stereo-
type’s prior cumulative self-fulfilling effect, the results highlight
how the fundamental attribution error can serve as a mechanism
whereby a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect can per-
petuate from one social interaction to another. Indeed, the stereo-
typic judgments that perceivers made were not caused by a reli-
ance on sex stereotypes, but instead by a reliance on the target’s
Table 4
Experiment 4: Perceivers’ Judgments of the Target
Note. M � mean; SD � standard deviation.
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839CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
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behavior— behavior that confirmed sex stereotypes to varying
degrees because of the stereotype’s prior cumulative self-fulfilling
effect. These results are particularly troubling because they applied
not only to judgments of sex-typed traits, but also to judgments of
general academic competence, career aptitude, and career suitabil-
ity; judgments that could encourage perceivers to exclude or
wrongfully channel some targets into areas of study and work on
the basis of the accumulating effects of stereotypic beliefs.
General Discussion
The idea that stereotypes can have cumulative self-fulfilling
effects regularly appears in the psychological literature (Jussim,
2012). Such assertions, though theoretically compelling, have been
purely speculative, made in the absence of empirical support. The
present research provided an initial test of the hypothesized effect,
and strongly supported the accumulation hypothesis. Across the
board, targets confirmed stereotypes about weight and sex to a
greater extent when two perceivers held stereotypic expectations
about them than when only one did. In addition, targets’ confir-
matory behavior had downstream consequences. Naïve perceivers
who had not caused targets to confirm the stereotypes nonetheless
judged them according to the stereotypic behaviors they had been
channeled to adopt, an effect that even occurred among perceivers
who were aware that targets’ behavior was shaped by the actions
of others.
These findings advance theoretical and empirical understanding
about the self-fulfilling nature of stereotypes in three critical
respects. First, they help to clarify how stereotype-based self-
fulfilling prophecies can create or exacerbate social problems
despite that false expectations typically have only modest self-
fulfilling effects on targets’ behavior within dyadic relations. Sec-
ond, they show that situational affordances, which have long been
thought to contribute to the self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes, can
also operate as a mechanism of accumulation. Because this re-
search demonstrated the effect of this mechanism among indepen-
dent perceivers, it also explains how multiple perceivers who do
not know one another can, through their collective actions, con-
struct a situation that more strongly encourages targets to confirm
a stereotype than can the actions of individual perceivers acting
singly. Third, the findings suggest that the stereotypic behaviors
that targets exhibit as a result of a stereotype’s cumulative self-
fulfilling effect can become the foundation upon which new per-
ceivers form impressions of them. Thus, the cumulative self-
fulfilling effects of stereotypes may create seemingly defensible
positions from which new perceivers may afford targets opportu-
nities and constraints that could widen the gap between advantaged
and disadvantaged groups.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Social Problems
For most of the 20th century, the psychological literature char-
acterized the self-fulfilling prophecy as a powerful phenomenon
capable of producing large-scale social problems in areas such as
hiring, education, wages, and health care (Merton, 1948; Ross et
al., 2010; Snyder, 1984). Such claims were appealing because they
offered a psychological and sociological explanation for unde-
niable social injustice. Yet, as empirical evidence mounted, it
seemed that claims of powerful self-fulfilling prophecies may have
been overstated. Empirical research consistently showed that self-
fulfilling prophecy effects were relatively modest in magnitude
(Rosenthal, 1994, 2003). Even so, such findings did not preclude
the possibility that powerful self-fulfilling prophecy effects could
still arise through processes of accumulation.
In support of this possibility, Madon and colleagues showed that
the self-fulfilling effects of parents’ expectations on their adoles-
cents’ alcohol use accumulate across mothers and fathers (Madon
et al., 2004), and over time among particular adolescents (Madon,
Willard, Guyll, Trudeau, & Spoth, 2006). However, because their
findings pertained only to interpersonal expectations, which are
idiosyncratic and, therefore, an unlikely cause of widespread social
injustice, it was not clear how the accumulation processes they
identified could produce the large-scale social problems proposed
by the theoretical literature. Consideration of this issue naturally
suggested the influence of stereotypes, which have always been at
the heart of claims linking self-fulfilling prophecies to social
problems. Thus, despite initial empirical support for general pro-
cesses of accumulation, an important question remained unan-
swered: Can the self-fulfilling effects of stereotypes accumulate?
The results of the present research indicated that they can: Con-
sistently, the stereotypic expectations of multiple perceivers
caused targets to more strongly confirm a stereotype than did the
stereotypic expectations of individual perceivers.
Magnitude of Stereotype-Based Cumulative
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Effects
Because the cumulative self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes is
fundamentally an issue of magnitude, it is useful to compare the
effects reported in this research to those reported in the broader
literature. In this research, the average self-fulfilling prophecy
effect associated with a single perceiver’s stereotypic expectation
(d � 0.65) was similar to the meta-analytic effect size of interper-
sonal self-fulfilling prophecy effects within dyadic relations (d �
0.60; Rosenthal, 1994). The present research also indicated, how-
ever, that a second perceiver’s stereotypic expectation had an
additional self-fulfilling effect beyond that associated with the first
perceiver’s self-fulfilling effect. Across the experiments, the self-
fulfilling effect uniquely attributable to a second perceiver’s ste-
reotypic expectation was d � 1.04, on average. Furthermore,
because of this additional unique effect, the average total self-
fulfilling effect attributable to both perceivers combined was d �
1.69, (i.e., .65 � 1.04 � 1.69), which is more than twice the
magnitude of the self-fulfilling effect elicited by one perceiver in
this research and in the broader literature.
The accumulation effect observed herein is important because it
suggests that the typical self-fulfilling effects reported in the
literature may underestimate the power of stereotypes. This is
because the literature has focused exclusively on the self-fulfilling
effect of stereotypes within dyadic relations even though stereo-
types are often consensual. Thus, different perceivers may hold
similar stereotypic expectations about a target. If these expecta-
tions are inaccurate, then each perceiver may exert a self-fulfilling
effect that could combine with the self-fulfilling effects of other
perceivers to ultimately have a powerful influence on the target’s
behavior. Such a process is troublesome because it may exacerbate
social problems by virtue of creating unjust social trajectories.
Moreover, if new perceivers fail to adjust for the fact that a
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stereotype’s prior self-fulfilling effect caused a target’s stereotypic
behavior, as was the case in this research, then these social trajec-
tories could become self-sustaining, or at the very least difficult to
change.
Situational Affordances
The present research tested for the accumulation of stereotype-
based self-fulfilling prophecy effects in the context of situational
affordances. When perceivers construct situational affordances in
accord with their stereotypic expectations, they encourage targets
to behaviorally confirm a stereotype by channeling their behavior
in the direction of the stereotype. The potential for a stereotype’s
self-fulfilling effect to accumulate across perceivers arises when
multiple perceivers provide similar situational affordances to the
same target. Consistent with this mechanism, the targets in this
research more strongly confirmed stereotypes about weight and
sex when multiple perceivers had independently provided them
with a situational affordance that encouraged confirmation of the
stereotypes than when only one perceiver had done so.
Importantly, however, targets were not compelled to act in
stereotypic ways. Although the situational affordances channeled
their behavior in the direction of the stereotypes, all targets had the
freedom to predominantly disconfirm the stereotypes. The fact that
they did not exercise this freedom suggests that more than just the
objective features of the situational affordances impinged on their
behavior. The established propensity for people to actively con-
struct social reality suggests that targets may have confirmed the
stereotypes because of the way they interpreted the situational
affordances. For example, we speculated that the targets in Exper-
iment 1 may have perceived a large amount of candy as a form of
cover that permitted them to take many pieces without detection,
and that the targets in Experiment 3 may have considered the
interpersonal consequences of their article selections for the antic-
ipated meeting with their partners. One way to understand the
results of this research, therefore, is that perceivers paved a be-
havioral path for targets that targets followed because of the way
they construed it.
This explanation also suggests that different circumstances
might have led targets to construe the same situational affordances
in ways that discouraged them from confirming the stereotypes.
For example, the literature on dyadic self-fulfilling prophecies
indicates that targets are less susceptible to self-fulfilling prophe-
cies when they are aware of perceivers’ expectations (Hilton &
Darley, 1985). Applying this finding to the present research sug-
gests that targets might have tended to disconfirm the stereotypes
had they attributed the situational affordances to perceivers’ ste-
reotypic expectations. For instance, if targets believed that they
received a large amount of candy because of their perceived
weight, or predominantly sex-typed articles because of their per-
ceived sex, then they may have intentionally taken less candy or
fewer sex-typed articles. Thus, the way that targets interpret a
situation may have a bearing on a stereotype’s cumulative self-
fulfilling effect.
Other Potential Mechanisms of Accumulation
The present focus on situational affordances as a mechanism of
a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect is consistent with
historical analyses of stereotype-based self-fulfilling prophecies.
However, consideration of the broader social psychological liter-
ature suggests other potential mechanisms of the accumulation
process. We next discuss two that seem particularly likely in light
of the empirical evidence: self-concept change and amplification.
Self-concept change. Perceivers’ expectations can change tar-
gets’ self-concepts through an iterative interaction sequence (Dar-
ley & Fazio, 1980). Though typically observed within dyadic
relations, such changes could be greater when multiple perceivers
hold similar expectations about the same target due to the per-
ceived credibility ascribed to consensual beliefs. Analogous to
Kelley’s (1973) covariation model, when an expectation is idio-
syncratic to one perceiver, targets may conclude that it says more
about the perceiver’s characteristics than their own, thus weaken-
ing the expectation’s apparent credibility and reducing self-
concept change.
By contrast, when an expectation is consensually shared by
multiple perceivers, as in the case of some stereotypes, it may be
given more credibility. Targets may wonder, quite reasonably, why
multiple perceivers would expect them to possess or lack a par-
ticular characteristic if it were not true? This could lead targets to
conclude that the expectation says more about their own charac-
teristics than those of the perceivers, thus strengthening the expec-
tation’s apparent credibility and increasing self-concept change.
Although the number of perceivers who must share an expectation
for this to happen is an empirical question, it is possible that two
perceivers might be enough, in which case the critical factor
driving the effect may be a categorical shift from an idiosyncratic
expectation to one that is consensual.
However, because self-concept change is not behavioral, it does
not satisfy the self-fulfilling prophecy criterion of behavioral con-
firmation. Nevertheless, changes to targets’ self-concepts could
initiate behavioral confirmation through self-verification strivings.
Targets who internalize a perceiver’s false expectation may engage
in self-verification processes that subsequently cause them to
behaviorally confirm the false expectation (Madon et al., 2008;
Scherr, Madon, Guyll, Willard, & Spoth, 2011; Snyder & Swann,
1978). The credibility ascribed to consensually shared stereotypic
expectations may exacerbate this effect. This is because consen-
sually shared expectations may produce greater changes to targets’
self-concepts than idiosyncratic expectations, and correspond-
ingly, elicit more stereotype-confirming behavior from targets via
self-verification processes. Moreover, to the extent that targets
discount a single perceiver’s stereotypic expectation, a target’s
susceptibility to a stereotype’s self-fulfilling effect may require an
emergent consensus of expectations. That is to say, there may be
circumstances under which accumulation is necessary for any
self-fulfilling prophecy effect to occur, and in such cases syner-
gistic accumulation may be especially likely, such as what hap-
pened in Experiment 1.
Amplification. In this research, the self-fulfilling effect of
stereotypes accumulated across perceivers who never interacted
with one another, an effect that occurred because multiple perceiv-
ers independently provided a target with a similar situational
affordance. This result shows that the accumulation process does
not require social interaction among perceivers. However, when
perceivers do interact, their expectations may become amplified.
For example, Willard, Madon, Guyll, Scherr, and Buller (2012)
showed that perceivers’ false expectations about a target’s hostility
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841CUMULATIVE SELF-FULFILLING EFFECTS OF STEREOTYPES
became more extreme when perceivers interacted with another
perceiver who also believed the target had a hostile personality.
The tendency for social interaction to amplify perceivers’ ex-
pectations has important implications for a stereotype’s cumulative
self-fulfilling effect. First, the more amplified perceivers’ expec-
tations, the more likely perceivers may be to construct situational
affordances that encourage confirmation of a stereotype. Second,
an amplified expectation may change targets’ self-concepts more
than an expectation that has not been amplified, thus also evoking
more stereotype-consistent behavior from targets through the self-
verification processes described above. Examination of these am-
plification processes awaits research paradigms that permit multi-
ple perceivers to interact prior to treating targets in stereotypic
ways.
Limitations
External validity. The methods of this research created an
artificial situation in which perceivers independently made behav-
ioral decisions (e.g., selecting candy for a target) on the basis of
targets’ social group membership (e.g., heavy vs. thin) that were
passed along to targets through experimental procedures. The
experimental control created by this approach was useful for
testing whether the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecy effects
across perceivers is possible, but it also simplified the accumula-
tion process. Notably, it removed the potential influence of a host
of factors that might typically be present in the naturalistic envi-
ronment (e.g., certainty of expectations, perceiver and target rela-
tions, self-verification strivings, social interaction, etc.), and which
could influence a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling effect.
Although this limitation may raise questions about the external
validity of the findings, it also highlights a potential contribution of
the present research inasmuch as it suggests that stereotype-based
self-fulfilling prophecy effects may be especially likely to accu-
mulate when targets’ opportunities and constraints are tightly
controlled by perceivers; historical and contemporary examples
include American segregation, South African apartheid, caste sys-
tems, and cultures that oppress women. We are not suggesting that
the accumulation of stereotype-based self-fulfilling prophecies is
necessarily limited to these kinds of contexts, but rather that these
contexts may be especially conducive to eliciting the effect. In-
deed, Madon et al.’s (2004) finding that self-fulfilling prophecy
effects accumulated across perceivers in the context of parents’
expectations about their adolescents’ future alcohol use suggests
that the accumulation of self-fulfilling prophecy effects may re-
flect a general process of interpersonal influence that can occur in
less restrictive situations and contexts than noted here.
Patterns of accumulation. The present research provided
clear and consistent evidence of accumulating self-fulfilling
prophecy effects, but the pattern of these effects differed across the
stereotypes examined. Whereas synergistic accumulation charac-
terized the overweight stereotype and the stereotype of men, con-
current accumulation characterized the stereotype of women. Sev-
eral points regarding these differences deserve mention. First, we
cannot easily explain why different accumulation patterns emerged
for the stereotypes of women and men. Initially, we considered
the possibility that the women in our sample might have felt more
comfortable selecting stereotypically masculine articles than the
men did selecting stereotypically feminine articles. However, there
was no evidence to support this interpretation as women and men
responded similarly to the article sets. We also cannot attribute the
difference to method variance because the same method was used
to test the cumulative effects of both stereotypes. The absence of
any clear explanation points to the need for future research.
Second, the tendency for synergistic accumulation to predomi-
nate the findings may seem to suggest that it is the more prevalent
of the two patterns, especially because it also characterized Madon
et al.’s (2004) examination of interpersonal cumulative self-
fulfilling prophecy effects. Although possible, an alternative inter-
pretation is that synergistic accumulation is particularly likely to
emerge with the kinds of behaviors that have been used to test the
accumulation hypothesis. Both this research and Madon et al.,
(2004) examined behaviors that were not bound by a target’s
ability. The amount of candy a target takes, the type of articles a
target selects, and the amount of alcohol an adolescent drinks do
not require any special talent, training, or aptitude that could
restrict targets from confirming a false expectation. As a result,
such behaviors may be particularly susceptible to the accelerating
pattern of synergistic accumulation. Other behaviors, such intelli-
gence or athleticism, may be less susceptible to this accelerating
pattern because targets’ true abilities may set boundaries that are
difficult to surpass. In such cases, concurrent accumulation may be
more typical. Further, when accumulation does occur with ability-
based behaviors, accumulation may be maximized with only a few
perceivers because targets may quickly reach the limit of their true
abilities.
Finally, ample research in social psychology indicates that mo-
tivational, cognitive, and dispositional factors can moderate the
strength of self-fulfilling prophecy effects (Snyder & Stukas,
1999). An important next step in theory building is to investigate
whether these factors also affect the presence of concurrent and
synergistic accumulation. It is possible, for example, that syner-
gistic accumulation is rendered more likely by conditions that
intensify self-fulfilling prophecy effects, such as when perceivers
are motivated to control targets’ behavior, targets have lower status
or power than perceivers, and perceivers’ expectations are clear
but targets’ self-views are unclear. Conversely, concurrent accu-
mulation may be rendered more likely by conditions that mitigate
self-fulfilling prophecy effects, such as when perceivers are mo-
tivated to get along with targets, targets have higher status or
power than perceivers, and perceivers’ expectations are unclear but
targets’ self-views are clear. Discovering the motivational, cogni-
tive, and dispositional factors that tend to elicit one or the other
pattern of accumulation will provide greater theoretical under-
standing about the accumulation process.
Demand characteristics. A key finding of this research was
that perceivers constructed situational affordances that proximally
caused targets to confirm the stereotypes. We speculated that this
effect occurred because of the way targets construed the situation.
However, one might wonder whether demand characteristics offers
a more parsimonious explanation (e.g., “they gave me a lot of
candy, they must want me to take many pieces.”). Two consider-
ations argue against this interpretation. First, the suspicion rates
were very low and, second, in the one instance in which removing
the data of suspicious participants affected the results (Experiment
1), it led to a stronger, not weaker, accumulation effect, suggesting
the influence of psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966) rather than
demand characteristics.
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842 MADON ET AL.
Number of perceivers. Because the present research exam-
ined accumulation in the context of two perceivers, it cannot
address what happens when more than two perceivers are in-
volved. The theorized link between self-fulfilling prophecies and
social problems implies that a stereotype’s cumulative self-
fulfilling effect strengthens with additional perceivers. However, it
is also possible that two is special, meaning that a stereotype’s
cumulative self-fulfilling effect may level-off after the minimum
requirement of two perceivers has been reached. The more general
issue is that there may sometimes be a curvilinear, asymptotic
relationship between the number of perceivers who hold a stereo-
typic expectation about a target and the target’s tendency to
behaviorally confirm the stereotype. Whether this is the case will
require future research to test the accumulation hypothesis across
more than two perceivers. If future research supports the “two is
special” hypothesis, then long-standing assumptions about the way
that self-fulfilling prophecies contribute to social problems may
need to be reconsidered.
Protected status. Finally, even though our results showed that
stereotypes can have cumulative self-fulfilling effects, we demon-
strated this effect with social groups about whom people feel
relatively comfortable expressing negative attitudes (e.g., Haines
et al., 2016; Leskinen, Rabelo, & Cortina, 2015; Puhl & Heuer,
2009). As such, our procedures might have increased the chances
that participants would treat targets in line with their stereotypes,
a necessary step in the self-fulfilling prophecy process. This raises
the possibility that perceivers may be less inclined to apply their
stereotypes to groups with greater protected status (Madon, Smith,
& Guyll, 2005), such as those associated with race or military
service, in which case a stereotype’s cumulative self-fulfilling
effect may be mitigated or even preempted.
Conclusion
Self-fulfilling prophecies are hypothesized to contribute to so-
cial problems by generating and perpetuating group inequalities.
The cumulative self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes is one means
through which such inequalities can arise. Consistent with this
process, the present research provided the first empirical evidence
that the self-fulfilling effect of stereotypes can accumulate across
perceivers. Targets more strongly confirmed stereotypes about
weight and sex when two perceivers treated them in stereotypic
ways than when only one did. Moreover, targets’ confirmatory
behavior biased new perceivers’ judgments of them, thereby show-
ing how the cumulative self-fulfilling effects of stereotypes can
transcended beyond the original interactions that produced them.
These findings are consistent with a long line of research within
social psychology emphasizing the power of beliefs to create
reality and demonstrate how even small self-fulfilling prophecy
effects can contribute to social problems via an accumulation
process.
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Revision received March 23, 2018
Accepted April 17, 2018 �
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In the article “The Accumulation of Stereotype-Based Self-Fulfilling Prophecies” by Stephanie
Madon, Lee Jussim, Max Guyll, Heather Nofziger, Elizabeth R. Salib, Jennifer Willard, and Kyle
C. Scherr (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018, Vol. 115, No. 5, pp. 825– 844. doi:
10.1037/pspi0000142), three errors occurred due to printer errors. The last sentence in the Type I
Error section should read as follows: Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to
examine the effect of experimental factors on multiple dependent variables of the same underlying
construct. The second sentence of the Profile subsection of Experiment 1 should read as follows:
The profile always described the target as female, European American, 21 years old, “between 5 feet
4 inches and 5 feet 6 inches tall,” and as having a constellation of personality traits that was held
constant. The third sentence in the Accumulation subsection of Experiment 1 should read as
follows: In the current data, for example, it was possible that the signal communicated by the
situational affordances was too weak to elicit a self-fulfilling effect when only the expectations of
individual perceivers were considered, in which case targets might have ignored or discounted the
signal.
The online version of this article has been corrected.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000173
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000173
The Accumulation of Stereotype-Based Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Their Cumulative Effects
Situational Affordances
Research Overview
Analytic Strategy
Type I Error
Power and Effect Sizes
Experiment 1
Method
Participants
Experimental design
Phase 1: Materials and measures
Profile
Photograph
Perceiver behavior
Manipulation checks
Suspicion check for perceivers
Phase 2: Materials and measures
Candy
Target behavior
Filler questions and props
Suspicion check for targets
Procedures
Phase 1
Phase 2
Discussion
Overview of Experiments 2 and 3
Experiment 2
Method
Participants
Experimental design
Materials and measures
Profile
Perceiver behavior
Manipulation check
Suspicion check
Procedures
Results
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics
Manipulation check
Suspicion check
Article pools
Main analyses
Discussion
Experiment 3
Method
Participants
Design
Materials and measures
Article sets
Target behavior
Profile
Suspicion check
Procedures
Results
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics
Suspicion check
Main analyses
Participant behavior
Self-fulfilling prophecy effect
Accumulation
Pattern of accumulation
Participant sex
Discussion
Experiment 4
Method
Participants
Design
Materials and measures
Article selection lists
Articles
Measures
Perceiver judgments
Sex-typed traits
General academic competency
Aptitude in math and science
Career suitability
Manipulation checks
Suspicion check
Procedures
Results
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics
Manipulation checks
Suspicion check
Main analyses
Discussion
General Discussion
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Social Problems
Magnitude of Stereotype-Based Cumulative Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Effects
Situational Affordances
Other Potential Mechanisms of Accumulation
Self-concept change
Amplification
Limitations
External validity
Patterns of accumulation
Demand characteristics
Number of perceivers
Protected status
Conclusion
References
Correction to Madon et al. (2018)
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