Self-Fulfilling Hypothesis

An initially provisionary statement that guides a scientist's effort to observe, to set up experiments and to collect data, all of which are more likely to lend support to rather than reject the statement, thereby making it more true than it would have been had that effort not been so guided. Self-fulfilling hypotheses are known in the social sciences since the recognition of the hawthorne effect but are difficult to identify since the hypothesis' control of the observer's actions is largely unconscious and often denied (see self-reference, self-fulfilling prophesy ). (Krippendorff )