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.
