Question

A college instructor's schedule has her teaching an honors section of psychology. Halfway through the semester, she is told that her class was NOT an honors section after all. She responds, "This is the best class I have ever taught and the grades prove it." What concept might a social psychologist use to explain the high grades this class obtained and the teacher's high opinion of the class? subject bias self-fulfilling prophecy covert sensitization collectivism

Answer 1

Answer:

The concept a social psychologist might use is the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Explanation:

A result of the Pygmalion effect, self-fulfilling prophecy explains that we are influenced by other people's expectations of us. If people believe we will succeed, we too begin to believe we will succeed. We then change our behavior, aligning it with the belief, making a self-fulfilling prophecy out of it.

Since the teacher was told she was teaching an honors section of psychology, and she believed it, she taught that class in a way that led it to the results an honors section would indeed present. The teacher was already biased - in a positive way - when she started teaching this class, which led her to see them in a favorable light. Such attitude ended up making the class perform better, as if it were truly an honors section.