Madon, S., Jussim, L., & Eccles, J. (1997). In search of the powerful self-fulfilling prophecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 791-809.

This research examined moderators of naturally occurring self-fulfilling prophecies. We assessed whether positive or negative self-fulfilling prophecies were more powerful, and whether some targets were more susceptible to self-fulfilling prophecies because of their self-concepts in a particular achievement domain and previous academic achievement. Results were based on longitudinal data obtained from 98 teachers and 1539 students in sixth-grade public school math classes. Moderation of self-fulfilling prophecies was assessed with a series of multiple regression analyses. Results yielded one strong pattern and one much weaker pattern. The clearest and strongest pattern of results showed that teacher perceptions predicted greater achievement changes among low achievers than among high achievers. There was also a much weaker tendency for teacher perceptions that overestimated students' past performance to predict greater achievement changes than did teacher perceptions that underestimated students' past performance. Implications for social perceptual accuracy, self-enhancement theory, and for understanding conditions under which self-fulfilling prophecies are stronger are discussed.