– What is self-fulfilling prophecy?
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You prophesise an outcome for a situation. You then fulfil the necessary events to realise the prophecy *due to your belief in it*. Self-fulfilling prophecy. It can be real circumstances or just enough to make you think it’s true.
For example: positive, imagined:
“I’m so lucky I always win this game of guessing heads or tails” you then play enough times that you guessed correctly because your belief in your good luck motivated you to keep playing. Your win convinces you that you are indeed lucky. You ignore the losses.
Negative, imagined: “everybody hates me, even strangers in the street” you walk around scowling and looking forward evidence that people hate you, you see their resting faces and their responses to your scowling and conclude that indeed they all hate you.
The imagined ones have a grain of truth and a lot of your own mind in them. They usually involve confirmation bias.
Negative, real: “I hate dogs they’re terrifying they just chase you around relentlessly” you then make a big deal when there’s a dog around, it notices you and tries to play, you run so it chases you.
Positive, real: “I’m going to make a friend today because people here are so friendly” you then appear happy, confident, and you come across as friendly and fun, and you engage people more, making them behave in friendly ways, the happy friendliness is infectious, and the atmosphere is good, resulting in making friends.
People often don’t realise they create a self fulfilling prophecy because they have an external locus of control. They feel and believe that their fate is decided for them by these external factors and they can’t see how their belief can come true because they believe it so much, rather than because they’re correct. It can be hard to convince someone of their self-fulfilled prophecy.
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