From being “disadvantaged” to becoming the most advantaged

Abstract

Since Merton defined the self-fulfilling prophecy in 1948, it has been adopted to several disciplines, and yet, only a small proportion of researches was built on its original complete notion accurately. Empirical papers even met challenges in proving an important part of it, notably that the initial expectation, that came true unwittingly through the behaviour of participants, had to be “false”. That crucial point is the Achilles heel of self-fulfilling prophecy researches, including its special cases, the Galatea, Golem and Pygmalion effect experiments. The research gave an overview on the self-fulfilling prophecies’ related themes in Educational Research, Psychology and Sociology: interactions/stereotypes–stigmas and performance/ achievement; and aimed to examine the (aggregate) role/potential of “disadvantaged” people (i.e. people with mental, physical, psychological problems, disadvantaged socioeconomic/ familial backgrounds) in inducing the special cases of self-fulfilling prophecy – compared to other participants’ aggregate role/potential across all formerly reviewed studies. To this end, an umbrella review method was implemented, that has been unprecedented in social science. A research evidence-based inclusion–exclusion criteria, a PRISMA 2020-based search strategy, and a two-phase quality appraisal ((1) an author-led PRISMA 2020 assessment, (2) a two-researcher 10-step protocol; results: 4.3–4.4/5) were carried out, leading to a sample of two meta-analyses. The data collection and summary were based on qualitative and quantitative findings. The results showed that the effect sizes in “disadvantaged” experiments (d between 1.38–2.20) exceeded overall effect sizes of meta-analyses (d1 = 0.81, d 2 = 1.13) and of most studies in their samples. With regard to that Merton’s “initially false conceptions” can/could be completely incorporated into the research design only when the “disadvantaged” are/were the subject of these experiments – i.e. indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy is/was measured –, the final conclusion is that the “disadvantaged” are actually “the most advantaged” people in inducing the positive cases of self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly Pygmalion effect.