This "idea of what they are supposed to be" is at the heart of psychological transaction/script analysis, which takes it to the extreme that people get this "script" describing how they should lead their life from their parents and will do almost anything to follow it, no matter how self-destructive, i.e. someone who gets told by their father "you'll end up in prison" will not only become a criminal, but will also let himself get caught so he can fulfill the script.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis