What are self-fulfilling prophecies and how they affect your life

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Scientists call them self-fulfilling or self-fulfilling.

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy

This is a psychological phenomenon when a person's prediction indirectly affects reality in a way that ultimately becomes true. For example, when a candidate is afraid that anxiety will interfere with his interview, and really fails the meeting, because he is too nervous.

For the first time in science, this phenomenon was described in 1948 by the American sociologist Robert Merton. He worked on issues of discrimination and noticed that the victims of racism were more often those who initially believed that they would be attacked.

The work of Merton was continued by psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Leonora Jacobson, who showed that a person can involuntarily realize not only his own, but also others' expectations. In now classical experiments, they discovered and described the Pygmalion effect. Situations where high or low expectations lead to better or worse results, respectively. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson found that teacher-student attitudes can affect student performance.

How Powerful Self-fulfilling Prophecies Affect Life

Scientists have no consensus on this issue. Some are convinced that the role of self-fulfilling prophecies is very modest and exaggerated. Critics argue that the phenomenon does not always manifest itself. And sometimes prediction is just a consequence of intelligent analysis. For example, a person may simply know himself well and therefore foresee his actions.

A proponent of this point of view, Professor of Rutgers Research University (USA) Lee Jassim believes that people have their own goals and motives and therefore are not so sensitive to the expectations of others. However, he acknowledges that self-fulfilling prophecies can have a cumulative effect and ultimately have a significant impact on our minds and behavior.

Other researchers note that in many areas of life, for example in education and intergroup interactions, the role of self-fulfilling prophecies is great, and their existence has been confirmed by numerous experiments.

The power of self-fulfilling prophecies lies in their ability to create a vicious circle of thought and behavior. If a person believes in something, he will begin to make decisions in accordance with new beliefs. As a result, his behavior will change, which will affect the opinions of others. And already the attitude of strangers will strengthen the person's initial beliefs about himself, others or about the world.

In a similar way, people can perceive other people's attitudes. For example, if a child is constantly being told that nothing sensible will come of him, then he can believe it, stop doing “useless” studies and start hooliganism. His behavior will cause a response from others, which will only strengthen him in the belief that he is “stupid”.

What exactly do self-fulfilling prophecies affect?

In a variety of areas of life.

Physical health

The negative effects of self-fulfilling prophecies are sometimes quite unexpected. For example, fear of falls only increases the likelihood of falls among older people.

Another common example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the placebo effect. People can expect help from remedies that don't really work, and actually feel better even though they've accepted a dummy.

On the state of mind

A person suffering from depression may convince themselves that they are not needed by anyone or that they have no friends. Once you believe this, it is easy to start avoiding communication or acting unfriendly, because you will not expect anything good from others. And in the end, such a person can really break ties with everyone.

By doing this, he, among other things, convinces other people that he is unsociable and uncommunicative. All this will lead to the fact that they will really stop communicating with him, and he himself will find himself in an even deeper depression.

On relationship

If one of the partners does not initially expect the relationship to be serious, then it will behave accordingly. This can cause the second to feel aloof and doubtful. In this case, both people will begin to consider the relationship frivolous. As a result, the couple will really fall apart.

On productivity and efficiency

Those who doubt their own skills may inadvertently let themselves down. For example, spend less time on work - because they are convinced that everything will end in failure. Why bother then?

The same can happen to people who have been taught that they are not capable of doing anything.

For successes and achievements

In their experiment, Robert Rosenthal and Leonora Jacobson randomly divided students in the same class into “gifted” and “ordinary”. The researchers passed this information on to the teachers. It turned out that positive expectations of the teacher contributed to a significant improvement in IQ indicators in "gifted" children compared to "ordinary" ones. Although there was practically no difference between these groups at the beginning of the experiment.

On stereotypes

The effect of self-fulfilling prophecies is very important in understanding where prejudice comes from. For example, a person may feel confident that members of a particular social or ethnic group are not capable of performing well. Because of this, the entrepreneur is likely to deny employment to all members of this group or to specifically look for flaws in the job that would confirm his prejudice.

Employees, on the other hand, may feel that their work is not appreciated, and because of this, they stop trying. This, in turn, will only reinforce the stereotypes of the boss. Or maybe the workers themselves will eventually begin to doubt their own abilities.

On the perception of the environment

The same goes for communication. If you are convinced before the meeting that there is a conversation with an interesting person with a wealth of experience, you may be friendlier and more inquisitive than usual. This will allow the interlocutor to "open up", and the conversation will really be useful and exciting. And your counterpart will confirm that you can keep the conversation going. That is, the prophecy will come true for both of you.

How to manage self-fulfilling prophecies

While the negative impact of self-fulfilling prophecies is most often emphasized, they can also be beneficial. Here's what you can do to make it happen.

Learn to deal with your own bad thoughts

You need to change your behavior and thinking. Try to evaluate your own actions and work on correcting prejudices yourself. Try to understand the reasons for the actions, think about how often you praise or scold yourself and what you pay attention to: your shortcomings or advantages.

If difficulties arise, it is worth contacting a specialist - a psychologist or psychotherapist. This is where cognitive behavioral therapy can help.

Set yourself up for success

Try using the Pygmalion Effect to your advantage. For example, it is known that if a manager expects to increase the efficiency of employees, this can in fact happen. Employees can understand that the boss expects improvement in results and believes that it is real, and therefore will try harder. If you want a breakthrough, convince your subordinates of its capabilities.

This effect also works in the opposite direction: when people expect something from a leader, he may begin to strive to meet these aspirations. Perhaps your boss simply doesn't know that you deserve a pay raise. You need to put this thought into his head, inadvertently mentioning your benefits for the team.

Believe in those you love

Self-fulfilling prophecies can not only destroy relationships, but also strengthen them. When a person is sure that he has found “that one” or “that one”, he will try to make the relationship happy. Which ultimately will lead to exactly this. So try to doubt less. It can give you and your partner confidence.

Think positively of other people

Positive expectations can work in any area. A benevolent attitude will make the interlocutor more polite, accommodating and more benevolent to you. And if you believe that it is not nationality, gender, age or belonging to a social group that determines the character and behavior of people, then there will be fewer reasons for prejudice.

Protect yourself from other people's negative thoughts

It is worth thinking about whose opinion you hold: your own or imposed? Try to convince yourself that just because someone thinks badly, is prejudiced, or underestimates you, it doesn't mean that something is really wrong with you.