Self-fulfilling prophecy

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, and their resulting behaviors align to fulfil those beliefs. This suggests peoples' 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, self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable to negative and positive outcomes.One of the ideas I had discussed in The Poverty of Historicism was the influence of a prediction upon the event predicted. I had called this the 'Oedipus effect', because the oracle played a most important role in the sequence of events which led to the fulfilment of its prophecy. … For a time I thought that the existence of the Oedipus effect distinguished the social from the natural sciences. But in biology, too—even in molecular biology—expectations often play a role in bringing about what has been expected. 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, and their resulting behaviors align to fulfil those beliefs. This suggests peoples' 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, self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable to negative and positive outcomes. American sociologist William Isaac Thomas was first to discover this phenomenon. In 1928 he developed the Thomas theorem (also known as the Thomas dictum), stating, 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.” Merton applied the 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 able to satisfy a multiple amount of customers asking for all of their existing cash at once. Merton concludes this example with the analysis, “The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment.” While Merton’s example focused on self-fulfilling prophecies within a business, his theory is also applicable to interpersonal communication since it’s found to have a “potential for triggering self-fulfilling prophecy effects” . This is due to the fact “that an individual decides whether or not to conform to the expectations of others.” This makes people rely or fall into self-fulfilling thoughts since they are trying to satisfy other’s perception of them. Self-fulfilling theory can be divided into two subsections, one would be the Pygmelion 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.” Additionally, Philosopher Karl Popper called the self-fulfilling prophecy the Oedipus effect: 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' (chapter I, part II).