Learn more
This section needs additional citations for verification. |
Self-fulfilling prophecy refers to the socio-psychological phenomenon of someone "predicting" or expecting something, and this "prediction" or expectation comes true simply because one
believes it will,
[1] and their resulting behaviors align to fulfill those beliefs. This suggests people's beliefs influence their actions. The principle behind this phenomenon is people create consequences regarding people or events, based on their previous knowledge toward that specific subject. Additionally, a self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable to negative and positive outcomes.
If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.
[2]
In other words, the consequence will come to fruition based on how one interprets the situation. Using Thomas' idea, another American sociologist,
Robert K. Merton, coined the term
self-fulfilling prophecy, popularizing the idea “...a belief or expectation, correct or incorrect, could bring about a desired or expected outcome.”
[1]
Learn more
This section needs additional citations for verification. |
Merton applied this concept to a fictional situation. 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. He mentions how a number of people falsely believe the bank was going to file for bankruptcy. Because of this false fear, many people decide to go to the bank and ask for all of their cash at once. These actions cause the bank to indeed go bankrupt because banks rarely have the amount of cash on hand to satisfy a large number of customers asking for all of their deposited cash at once.
Merton concludes this example with the analysis, “The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment.”
[3]
While Merton’s example focused on self-fulfilling prophecies within a business, his theory is also applicable to interpersonal communication since it is found to have a “potential for triggering self-fulfilling prophecy effects”
[4] . This is due to the fact “that an individual decides whether or not to conform to the expectations of others.”
[4] This makes people rely upon or fall into self-fulfilling thoughts since they are trying to satisfy other’s perceptions of them.
Self-fulfilling theory can be divided into two subsections, one would be the
Pygmalion effect which is when “one person has expectations of another, changes her behavior in accordance with these expectations, and the object of the expectations then also changes her behavior as a result.”
[4]
