The nonverbal mediation of self-fulfilling prophecies in interracial interaction

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Abstract

Two experiments were designed to demonstrate the existence of a self-fulfilling prophecy mediated by nonverbal behavior in an interracial interaction. The results of Experiment 1, which employed naive, white job interviewers and trained white and black job applicants, demonstrated that black applicants received (a) less immediacy, (b) higher rates of speech errors, and (c) shorter amounts of interview time. Experiment 2 employed naive, white applicants and trained white interviewers. In this experiment subject-applicants received behaviors that approximated those given either the black or white applicants in Experiment 1. The main results indicated that subjects treated like the blacks of Experiment 1 were judged to perform less adequately and to be more nervous in the interview situation than subjects treated like the whites. The former subjects also reciprocated with less proximate positions and rated the interviewers as being less adequate and friendly. The implications of these findings for black unemployment were discussed.

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    Citation Excerpt :

    That is, the present work focused on how one side of the conversation (the perceiver) can influence engagement willingness; however, in actual exchanges, the outcomes of these communications are highly dependent on the specific listener-speaker dyad, rather than a single individual's characteristics (Kluger et al., 2021). This raises questions for how the perceiver's expectations could influence or lead to a recursive, self-fulfilling prophecy, where perceivers who expect low openness ultimately elicit it by their own behaviors (see Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974). In closing, we acknowledge that many important questions remain on this topic.

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This research was supported by N.I.H. Biomedical Research Grants #5 S05 FR07057-04 and #5 S05 RR07057-07.

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