When accuracy-motivated perceivers fail: Limited attentional resources andthe reemerging self-fulfilling prophecy

The ability of accuracy-motivated perceivers to form individuated impressio ns of targets and to avoid creating self-fulfilling prophecies is hypothesi zed to depend on sufficient attentional resources. Accuracy-motivated inter viewers wee led to believe that their applicants were either well suited fo r the job or not and were given either no task or a mildly or highly distra cting task to complete during the interview. Consistent with past research, nondistracted accuracy-motivated interviewers neither created self-fulfill ing prophecies nor formed expectation-consistent impressions. In contrast, highly distracted accuracy-motivated interviewers both created self-fulfill ing prophecies and formed expectation-consistent impressions. Without suffi cient attentional resources, even well-intentioned accuracy-motivated perce ivers can fall prey to their inaccurate expectations and create inappropria te self-fulfilling prophecies.