The Mediation of Mothers' Self-Fulfilling Effects on Their Children's Alcohol Use: Self-Verification, Informational Conformity, and Modeling Processes

This research examined whether self-fulfilling prophecy effects are mediated by self-verification, informational conformity, and modeling processes. The authors examined these mediational processes across multiple time frames with longitudinal data obtained from two samples of mother-child dyads (N ₁ = 486; N ₂ = 287), with children's alcohol use as the outcome variable. The results provided consistent support for the mediational process of self-verification. In both samples and across several years of adolescence, there was a significant indirect effect of mothers' beliefs on children's alcohol use through children's self-assessed likelihood of drinking alcohol in the future. Comparatively less support was found for informational conformity and modeling processes as mediators of mothers' self-fulfilling effects. The potential for self-fulfilling prophecies to produce long-lasting changes in targets' behavior via self-verification processes are discussed.