"expectations spread" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it to refer to the idea that certain attitudes or beliefs become more widespread throughout a group or population. For example, "As knowledge of the new policy spread, so did expectations of its success."
The challenge for the old chains is that new expectations spread.
The year 1862 produced a crisis in Lassalle's thinking when the uprising in Italy led by Giuseppe Garibaldi did not, contrary to Lassalle's expectations, spread to other countries.
Deflationary expectations spread and intensified in 2006 as consumers waited for lower prices for cars, airline tickets and telecom fees before buying.
In months of large oil price fluctuations, consumers' longer term inflation expectations are spread out more widely," the I.M.F. said in a March study.
In a way, wealth is even a contributor: Western lifestyles and expectations have spread into Russia and, by European standards, the birth rate is low but not outlandishly so.
On the basis of this evidence, and contrary to a common expectation, the spread of ideas seems neither straightforward nor especially rapid in the academy.
Whether you're the first among your friends to move out of the old neighborhood or earn a high income, the expectation to "spread the love" is the same.
Televised police chases have become woven into our DNA in much the same way the expectation has spread that we are entitled to an increasingly more intimate zoom lens view into the lives of those we celebrate, including heads of state such as William and Kate.
You are unlikely, however, to mistake it for Nutella, so it's likely to work best with small children who have no expectations of chocolate spread.
Contrary to wide- spread expectations, an attorneys' fees provision that says you "shall be entitled" to reimbursement of your legal fees does not guarantee you anything.
European bison were reintroduced in our study area in the 1960s, and against prior expectation, have not spread along the Carpathian ridge, but instead expanded their range towards human settlements.
