Invitation to Psychology

Chapter 14 The Major Motives of Life: Food, Love, Sex, and work 509

Your expectations are further influenced by

your level of confidence in yourself and your

abilities (Dweck & Grant, 2008; Judge, 2009).

off with very easy anagrams, but half began with
insoluble ones. Sure enough, those who started
with the easy ones increased their estimates of
success on later ones. Those who began with the
impossible ones decided they would all be impos-
sible. These expectations, in turn, affected the
young women’s ability to actually solve the last
10 anagrams, which were the same for everyone.
The higher the expectation of success, the more
anagrams the women solved (Feather, 1966).
Once acquired, therefore, expectations can cre-
ate a self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton, 1948): Your
expectations make you behave in ways that make
the expectation come true. You expect to suc-
ceed, so you work hard—and succeed. Or you
expect to fail, so you don’t do much work—and
do poorly.

self-fulfilling proph-

ecy An expectation that

becomes reality because

of the tendency of the

person holding it to act in

ways that bring it about.

Person doesn’t

study adequately

or enough

Prophecy fullled;

person doesn’t

learn the stuff

Prophecy:

“I’ll never learn

this stuff”

Person gives

up trying

poWer

henry Kissinger

(b. 1923)

Former Secretary of

State

“power is the ultimate

aphrodisiac.”

dUty

eleanor roosevelt

(1884–1962)

humanitarian, lecturer,

stateswoman

“as for accomplishments, I just

did what I had to do as things

came along.”

eXCeLLeNCe

Florence griffith Joyner

(1959–1998)

olympic gold medalist

“When you’ve been second best

for so long, you can either ac-

cept it, or try to become the

best. I made the decision to

try and be the best.”

greed

Ivan Boesky (b. 1937)

Financier, convicted of

insider trading violations

“greed is all right...I think

greed is healthy. you can be

greedy and still feel good about

yourself.”