Question

Social Interaction and Social Construction Robert Merton, building on the work of W.1 Thomas, defined successive definitions of the situation as "self-fulfilling prophecies." Based on your own life experience, what are some examples of self-fulfilling prophecies? Can people overcome such prophecies?

Answer 1

ANSWER:

Self Fulfilling Prophecy is where a person expects an outcome and the expectations eventually lead to true events. It is the way in which our thoughts directly affect our behaviour and the environment around us. For example, if a person thinks that they are going to fail at some task, the person will always be concerned about failure and be stressed out with that particular work and hence put minimal efforts eventually leading to failure in that task, hence fulfilling the self prophecy of failing the given task.

There are two types of Self-fulfilling Prophecies: Self-Imposed and the Other-imposed. The self imposed deals with our own expectations leading to the desired (mostly negative) outcome or behaviour, whereas the other imposed refers to others expectations and thoughts leading to the desired (mostly negative) behaviour or outcome from our self.

Some daily examples could be:

1. If in a relationship, a person lacks trust in a person and believes that the relationship is not going to go any forward and will eventually fail - the partner feeling this might exhibit anxiety, or worry, lack of trust, irritability towards the partner, forming a pile of emotional events that eventually break the relationship. Thus, confirming the belief of the person that the relationship will fail - whereas, the emotional pile up due to this though was the actual reason for the breakup.

2. If a person expects good marks in his upcoming exams, he would work harder than ever, develop a rights strategy that control his behaviour of performing mistakes eventually getting his good grades. Here, his prophecy of getting good grades is fulfilled due to his behaviour that accompanied his thought of performing well.

3. An example of the other-imposed prophecy could be taunts or negative phrasing of appraisal of the child from his/her childhood leading to the child doing that behaviour and hence fulfilling the parents prophecy of the child being that way.

Some approaches to control the behaviour of self fulfilling Prophecy (the negative ones):

1. Power of Positive thinking

2. Belief that self fulfilling prophecy works the other way round that is in a positive way leading to change in outcomes

3. Meditation to control excessive or unnecessary thinking

4. Keeping a check on emotions or being self aware and conciously neglecting the negative thoughts

5. Remebering the past achievements in the same field

6. Believing in one self and beign self confident

7. Engaging in therapy that reduces anxiety related behaviours or thoughts that will alter thoughts gradually through like systematic desensitization.

Overall, self fulfilling prophecy is an outcome or pure negative thinking and false beliefs that one holds ( could be positive too). This has to dealt with more self awareness, engagement in positive behaviour like reading positive books or acknowleding and remembering the positive self always. Thus, these are some examples of the self fulfilling prophecy and steps to overcome it.

*Examples are subjective yet provide a general view of how this prophecy can be seen in daily life.