Psychology - Madon (2004): self-fulfilling prophecy and drinking behaviour: Advantages and disadvantages.

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Psychology - Madon (2004): self-fulfilling prophecy and drinking behaviour: Advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

  • A strength of this study is that there was a large sample of participants, so the results are likely to be more valid or true. Smaller samples can produce unreliable results.
  • This study does give a strong warning to parents about holding negative beliefs about their children - it could be that they become true even if they were false beliefs in the first place

Disadvantages

  • Parents may not have influenced their child's behaviour at all - they were just very accurate at judging their child's alcohol use. It may be an accurate prediction rather than a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • Many other people influence children so there could be other explanations. Friends are a strong source of influence for a teenager. It could be that friends had a greater influence over drinking behaviour than the parent's prediction, but this was not studied.
  • The study only shows a correlation. Correlations have less control than experiments and the researchers cannot be sure of a true link between the variables they are measuring. In this study, the researcher could not be 100 per cent certain of a definite link between parents' predications and a child's alcohol use. Other factors could have influenced the child rather than parental beliefs
  • A questionnaire such as the one used may have social desirability bias. Children may say they drink more to look tough, or say they drink less in case their parents find out. Similarly, parents may predict their children drink more because they think it is a badge of honour, or predict they drink less because it is not acceptable.

Evaluation

This kind of research is socially sensitive because it can be viewed as parent-blaming. Parents are often blamed for their child's actions, and this study is no different. We should be careful when interpreting the findings of this study, carefully weighing up the strengths and weaknesses before using the evidence to advise parents. In the exam you may be asked to apply your knowledge of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Think up some scenarios and practise explaining them using the self-fulfilling prophecy.

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