self-fulfilling prophecy
IQ and other test scores are powerful labels that can affect the way we look at ourselves and others.
self-fulfilling prophecy: occurs when a person's expectations of another person leads that person to behave in the expected way
ex: Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson tested the self-fulfilling prophecy at an elementary school. They told school teachers that a select number of their students were gifted academically - called them "spurters."
in actuality, the "spurters" we just randomly selected students.
At the end of the year, the teachers reported the "spurters" to be more curious, happy, and well-adjusted than the other students, and the performance of the "spurters" was consistent with the expectations of the teachers - they earned high grades and made gains in IQ points.
