Carl Word and his colleagues (1974)found that white college students,who were assumed to already hold prejudiced attitudes toward blacks,sat farther away,conducted briefer interviews,and made more speech errors when interviewing black students.Which of the following constructs most readily explains the results of this study?

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The results of the study are best explained by self-fulfilling prophecies, which occur when people's expectations about a specific individual or group lead them to act in ways that ultimately evoke the expected behavior, thus confirming the initial expectations. In this case, the white college students' assumed prejudiced attitudes toward blacks led them to behave in a dismissive and distant manner, which likely influenced their black interviewees to perform worse than they might have otherwise. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the initial expectation of poor performance by the black interviewees is confirmed by the behavior of the white interviewers, perpetuating the cycle of prejudice.

Carl Word and His Colleagues (1974)found That White College Students,who