Eric Koch for Anefo · CC0

A sociologist, born Meyer Robert Schkolnick, who coined "self-fulfilling prophecy" and "role model," terms that migrated so thoroughly into everyday English that their origin is easy to forget. He spent most of his career at Columbia, helped found the sociology of science as a field, and won the National Medal of Science in 1994. His work on unintended consequences and reference groups shaped how sociologists still think about how expectation and behavior feed each other.