Self-fulfilling prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part because someone believes or expects it to happen. When people truly believe something will occur, they often act in ways that make it more likely to happen. This idea is part of something called positive feedback loops, where small changes grow bigger over time.

This can lead to either good or bad results. Just by putting a label on someone or something, it can change how people see it and act, helping that label become true. How people talk to each other has a big role in creating these prophecies.

American sociologists W. I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas were the first Western scholars to study this idea. In 1928, they created the Thomas theorem, which says that if people think something is real, it will have real results. Later, another sociologist, Robert K. Merton, named this idea a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and helped many people understand it. Philosophers like Karl Popper and Alan Gewirth also added to this idea.

History

An early idea about this concept appeared in the work of Edward Gibbon in his book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He noted that predictions often help make themselves come true.

The term "self-fulfilling prophecy" was created by sociologist Robert K. Merton. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, he used the example of a bank run to explain how beliefs can cause unwanted events. He described how rumors that a bank would fail led people to withdraw their money all at once. Since banks do not keep all their money in cash do not keep their total assets in cash, they could not meet all the requests, which finally caused the bank to fail. Merton showed that the prediction of failure led to the failure itself.

This idea also works for individuals. People often act in ways that match what others expect of them. This is known as the Pygmalion effect, from experiments by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson. In their study, teachers were told certain students were expected to do very well, and by the end of the year, those students had higher test scores.

Applications

People often change their actions based on what they believe others expect of them. This idea has been used in many areas, such as education. For example, when teachers think some students are very smart, those students often end up doing better than expected. This happens because the teachers give them more attention and encouragement.

Self-fulfilling prophecies can also happen in bigger situations, like between countries. When one country fears another is becoming too powerful, that fear can lead to actions that actually make the other country more of a threat. This is what some historians believe happened when Athens grew powerful and Sparta felt threatened, leading to war.

Stereotype

Self-fulfilling prophecies can play a big role in unfair treatment of people because of their race or background. When people believe something negative about a group, they may act in ways that make that belief come true, even if it isn’t really true.

For example, some people thought that black workers would not fit well with trade unions. Because of this belief, they were not hired, which meant they never had the chance to learn about unions. This made the original belief seem true, even though it wasn’t.

Teachers can also unintentionally create these kinds of expectations. If teachers think some students are not good at subjects like math, they might not encourage those students to work hard. This can make the students feel less confident and perform worse, which then seems to prove the teacher’s original belief.

Literature, media, and the arts

In stories, self-fulfilling prophecies are often used to create exciting plots. They are very popular in science fiction and fantasy books and movies. These prophecies work because someone tries to stop them, but their actions end up making the prophecy happen.

Many old myths and tales use this idea. For example, in the story of Oedipus, he was told he would kill his father and marry his mother. Because he tried to avoid this, he ended up meeting his real parents and unintentionally fulfilling the prophecy.

Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is another famous example. Three witches tell Macbeth he will become king. Wanting this to happen, he kills the current king, which leads to his own downfall and death, just as the prophecy said.

The idea of self-fulfilling prophecies also appears in modern beliefs like the law of attraction, where thinking positively is thought to bring good results. However, this idea has not been proven by science.

Sports

Some researchers in 2008 studied basketball teams and found that head coaches gave more encouraging feedback, while assistant coaches were more critical. They thought this happened because of the expectations others had for the players, which could influence how the players performed.

Helen Brown did experiments with athletes to see how media expectations affect them. She found that athletes' performance often matched what people expected of them. Another experiment in London showed that these expectations could also affect how athletes think and make decisions, sometimes in ways that could be harmful.

Causal loop

See also: Causal loop and Newcomb's paradox

A self-fulfilling prophecy can be a kind of circle where actions lead to their own result. It doesn’t need magic or special powers — it can happen because someone believes something will happen, and then they act in ways that make it come true. One famous story is the play Oedipus Rex, where a man ends up doing exactly what was predicted because he didn’t know about the prediction. The movie 12 Monkeys also looks at ideas about fate and whether we can change the past.