Expectancy Confirmation, Power And

When people interact with others, they often use preconceived beliefs and expectations as guides to action. Their actions, in turn, may prompt interaction partners to behave in ways that confirm initial beliefs. This phenomenon, in which belief creates reality, is known by several names—the self-fulfilling prophecy, expectancy confirmation, and behavioral confirmation (terminology that emphasizes how the target's actual behavior confirms the perceiver's initial beliefs). The behavioral confirmation scenario has been demonstrated in a series of empirical investigations in which a person (the perceiver), having adopted erroneous beliefs about another person (the target), acts in ways that cause the behavior of the target to confirm the perceiver's expectations.

Considerable evidence suggests behavioral confirmation effects are robust and generalize over a wide range of expectations and interaction contexts. Moreover, research has demonstrated that power plays a possible causal role in this interplay of belief and behavior in several compelling ways: those with expectations tend to hold positions of power, the motivations of powerful perceivers differ from those of powerless targets, behavioral conformation is particularly likely within interactions between powerful perceivers and powerless targets, and expectations themselves create a sense of relative power thereby turning perceivers into powerful perceivers.

One way that power may be implicated in behavioral confirmation is that those with expectations are often those in positions of power. One can readily think of a variety of situations with powerful perceivers and less powerful targets. For example, teachers, interviewers, employers, and therapists all have positions of power and are apt to have expectations about others with less power. Moreover, these positions of power often make expectations relevant; for example, teachers may rely on expectations about student performance to guide their teaching efforts, employers may rely on expectations in supervising employees, and therapists may draw on expectations in designing therapeutic strategies. Thus, it may be particularly likely that people in positions of power are guided by their expectations in dealing with those of lesser power.

Moreover, research by Mark Snyder and Julie Haugen indicates that the motivations of perceivers often differ from those of targets and these differences set the stage for behavioral confirmation. Typically, the motivation of perceivers is to “get to know” the target and this motivation leads perceivers to use expectations as a guide for their interactions, as those in positions of high power rely more on stereotyped expectations in their dealings with persons of lesser power. For example, a perceiver interviewing someone expected to be tardy is likely to ask about the times the target had been late in the last month; any affirmative response confirms the initial expectation of tardiness. Further, because of the power associated with the position of interviewer, the interviewer may have ample opportunity to direct the interaction based on his or her expectations, choosing the interview topics that are addressed and making it difficult for the target to avoid discussion areas that might not confirm the perceiver's expectations. By contrast, the motivation of the target is often “to get along” with the perceiver. This motivation leads targets to acquiesce to whatever inquiries a perceiver directs at the target and not attempt to redirect the conversation. Even if targets are aware of negative expectations held about them, they put themselves at risk attempting to disconfirm the expectations that perceivers hold about them. In general, people are not pleased when their expectations are disconfirmed. Thus, targets may actively confirm expectations in an effort to please and “get along” with the powerful perceiver.

...