A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that the prediction would come true. In the phenomena, people tend to act the way they have been expected to in order to make the expectations come true. Self-fulfilling prophecies are an example of the more general phenomenon of positive feedback loops. A self-fulfilling prophecy can have either negative or positive outcomes. Merely applying a label to someone or something can affect the perception of the person/thing and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Interpersonal communication plays a significant role in establishing these phenomena as well as impacting the labeling process.
American sociologists W. I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas were the first Western scholars to investigate this phenomenon. In 1928, they developed the Thomas theorem (also known as the Thomas dictum): "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."The child in America: Behavior problems and programs. W.I. Thomas and D.S. Thomas. New York: Knopf, 1928: 571–572 Another American sociologist, Robert K. Merton, continued the research, and is credited with coining the term "self-fulfilling prophecy" and popularizing the idea that "a belief or expectation, correct or incorrect, could bring about a desired or expected outcome." The works of philosophers Karl Popper and Alan Gewirth also contributed to the idea.
History An early precursor of the concept appears in Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment".
The phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" was coined by Robert K. Merton, a sociologist who also developed the ideas of anomie, social structure, and the modes of individual adaption. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, he uses the example of a bank run to show how self-fulfilling thoughts can make unwanted situations happen. In his illustration, rumors spread about the town that the local bank is going to file for bankruptcy, causing many people to rush to the bank and close their accounts. Because banks do not keep their total assets in cash, the bank was unable to fulfill all its customers' withdrawals, which eventually caused the bank to go bankrupt. Merton concludes with the analysis, "The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment".
While Merton's example focused on self-fulfilling prophecies within a community, self-fulfilling prophecies also apply to individuals, as individuals often conform to the expectations of others. This is also known as the Pygmalion effect, based on the experiments by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, where teachers were told that a random selection of students were expected to perform exceptionally well; those students showed a significant increase in test scores at the end of the year.
Philosopher Karl Popper called the self-fulfilling prophecy the Oedipus effect:
The idea is similar to that discussed by the philosopher William James as "The Will to Believe." But James viewed it positively, as the self-validation of a belief.
Applications Examples abound in studies of cognitive dissonance theory and the related self-perception theory; people will often change their attitudes to come into line with what they profess publicly.Carrasco-Villanueva, M. A., El Efecto "Pricebo": Cómo los precios pueden influenciar la percepción sobre la calidad del cannabis y sus implicaciones en las políticas de precios. Pensamiento Crítico, vol. 22, no. 2, pp 175–210.
In the United States, the concept was broadly and consistently applied in the field of public education reform, following the War on Poverty, as teacher expectations have been shown to influence student academic performance. Theodore Brameld noted: "In simplest terms, education already projects and thereby reinforces whatever habits of personal and cultural life are considered to be acceptable and dominant." Quoted by Wilkins (1976), p. 176. The effects of teacher attitudes, beliefs, and values, affecting their expectations have been tested repeatedly, most notably in the Pygmalion in the Classroom study, where teachers were told arbitrarily that random students were likely to show significant intellectual growth. As a result, those random students actually ended the year with significantly greater improvement when given another IQ test. Though the changes may be subconscious, teachers who have higher expectations typically give "more time to answer questions, more specific feedback, and more approval". Likewise, students who have positive experiences with their teachers may study more. Academic self-fulfilling prophecies can be negative, however: one study indicated that female students may perform worse if they expect their male instructor to be sexist.
The phenomenon of the "inevitability of war" is a self-fulfilling prophecy that has received considerable study.
Fear of failure leads to deterioration of results, even if the person is objectively able to adequately cope with the problem. For example, fear of falling leads to more falls among older people.
Americans of Chinese and Japanese origin are more likely to die of a heart attack on the 4th of each month, due to the number four being considered unlucky and a portent of death.
Moore's law predicting that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years is often considered as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The belief that a bank is insolvent may help create the fact, but confidence in the bank's prospects may improve them. Similarly, stock-exchange panics and speculative bubbles can be both triggered by a widespread belief that the stock will go down (or up), thus starting the selling/buying mass move, etc.
People adapt to the judgments and assessments made by society, regardless of whether they were originally correct or not. There are certain prejudices against a socially marginalized group (e.g., homeless people, drug addicts or other minorities), and therefore, people in this marginalized group actually begin to behave in accordance with expectations.
Relationships A leading study by Columbia University found that self-fulfilling prophecies have some part in relationships: the beliefs by people in relationships can impact the likelihood of a breakup or the overall health of the relationship. L. Alan Sroufe suggested that "rejection expectations can lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection from others." The study looked at the inner workings behind the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in romantic relationships of people who were deemed high in rejection sensitivity, which was defined as "the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection". The study found that women were more likely to experience rejection sensitivity in comparison to the negativity held by men about the future of their relationships, and that women sensitive to rejection "may be more likely to behave in ways that exacerbate conflicts," which could lead to behavior that would "erode their partners' relationship satisfaction and commitment."
Other specific examples discussed in psychology include: "Clever Hans" effect Observer-expectancy effect Hawthorne effect Placebo effect Nocebo effect Pygmalion effect Stereotype threat
International relations Self-fulfilling prophecies have been apparent throughout history with the 'Thucydides trap': the occurrence of a rising power threatening a ruling or dominant power. Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general who recorded the Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens. He wrote, "It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable."
Another example of self-fulfilling prophecies is the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. The invasion was based on the assumption that Iraq posed a terrorist threat to the United States, though evidence shows that no threat was actually posed. The invasion and subsequent overthrowing of the Ba'athist regime created the conditions for an insurgency that resulted in Iraq becoming a stronghold for the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, thus fulfilling the initial belief of a potential threat.
Stereotype Self-fulfilling prophecies are one of the main contributions to racial prejudice and vice versa. According to the Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture, "Self-fulfilling prophecy makes it possible to highlight the tragic vicious circle which victimizes people twice: first, because the victim is stigmatized with an inherent negative quality; and secondly, because he or she is prevented from disproving this quality."Citation error. See inline comment how to fix. An example is given where white workers expected that black people would be against the principles of trade unionism because they considered black workers to be "undisciplined in traditions of trade unionism and the art of collective bargain-ing." Due to this belief, black workers were not hired at white-owned businesses, which made black workers unable to learn the principles of trade unionism, and thus prevented them from unionizing.
Teachers can encourage stereotype-based courses and can interact with students in a manner that encourages self-fulfilling thoughts: for example, female students may seem to be bad at math if teachers never encouraged them to improve their mathematical abilities.
The term "self-fulfilling prophecy" made its first appearance in educational literature in the 1960s, when African-American psychologist Kenneth B. Clark studied the responses of black children to black and white dolls. The responses from Clark's study ranged from some children calling the black doll ugly to one girl bursting into tears when prompted to pick the doll she identified with. The black children internalized the inferiority they learned and acted accordingly. Clark, whose work pushed the Supreme Court to desegregate schools, noted the influence of teachers on the achievement levels between Black and White students. This prompted Clark to begin a study in ten inner-city schools where he assessed the attitudes and behaviors of teachers. The belief held by teachers was that minority students were unintelligent, and therefore the teachers put no effort into teaching them. This led to a feedback loop of those students not being educated, and thus being perceived as unintelligent.
Literature, media, and the arts
In literature, self-fulfilling prophecies are often used as plot devices. They have been used in stories for millennia, but are especially popular in science fiction and fantasy. They are often used for dramatic irony, with the prophesied events coming to pass due to the attempts to prevent the prophecy. They are also sometimes used as comic relief.
Classical Many myths, legends, and fairy-tales make use of this motif as a central element of narratives that are designed to illustrate inexorable fate, fundamental to the Hellenic world-view.See Nemesis, Moirai, Erinyes. "Very often the bases for false definitions and consequent self-fulfilling prophecies are deeply rooted in the individual or group norms and are subsequently difficult to change". (Wilkins 1976:177). In a common motif, a child, whether newborn or not yet conceived, is prophesied to cause something that those in power do not want to happen, but the prophesied events come about as a result of the actions taken to prevent them.
Greek The word "prophet" is derived from the Greek word prophete, meaning "one who speaks for another."