Social Expectations In Interpersonal Communication

Often times, people think about a person’s character before we even meet them. These biases and thoughts often can lead them to treating that person differently, simply because of their perception to us. The self-fulfilling prophecy is connected to the perceptual bias in many ways. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that does come true, but only because the predictor affected the outcome directly or indirectly. Our actions impact others beliefs about us, those beliefs cause others actions toward us. Those actions will then reinforce our beliefs and influence further actions towards others. But how and why does this happen? Why do we generalize people before they’ve even spoken to us? Many studies have been conducted to answer these questions, but all seem to provide different outcomes and answers. This paper is meant to help draw conclusions between our actions, and the consequences they have on ours and others social outlooks. References
Jussim, …show more content…
They examine the steps in the chain of events by which the expectations of one person guide and direct the dynamics of social interaction such that the behavior of the target of those expectations comes to confirm or dis-confirm those expectations. An overview of several studies is given, including ones in which behavior affects ones beliefs towards another person, and ones in which race played a factor in behavior. They argue that studying social interactions provides a basis for a more general knowledge of interpersonal processes. It also helps to answer many questions about social expectations and biases. Dr. Mark Snyder is a professor at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches Psychology. He has many journals published by some of the most famous Psychology journals, including the American Behavioral Scientist, and the Journal of Personality and Social