Title: 
Headings: 

Content: External Mechanisms
One basic way in which roles influence behavior is via role affordances, or opportunities for different actions. For example, competitive roles typically promote self-assertion but inhibit kindness. In the quiz-show study described earlier, the role of questioner afforded the display of knowledge. This display led to the inference that the questioner was extremely knowledgeable, even though both partners tested similarly in general knowledge and the questioner was allowed to pick questions that he or she knew. The expectations of others based on one’s role also powerfully influence behavior. Many experiments have documented the effects of the self-fulfilling prophecy, in which an individual’s beliefs about a target are confirmed because the individual elicits such behavior from the target. For example, Robert Rosenthal and colleagues demonstrated the power of expectancies on others by providing teachers with lists of students who had been identified as likely to develop special abilities throughout the school year. In truth, these students did not initially differ from other students. However, the teachers assessed these children as more curious, interesting, and likely to succeed, and by the end of the school year, the “late bloomer” students actually performed better than other students. Studies of the self-fulfilling prophecy have effectively demonstrated how expectancies about different role occupants (e.g., that CEOs will be aggressive or women are emotional) can become reality.