A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that has an indirect or direct effect on reality, eventually becoming true. In other words, the prophecy comes true only for the reason that a person who has received certain information begins to perform appropriate actions based on this knowledge, which lead to the fulfillment of the prediction.
Self-fulfilling prophecies in art
Self-fulfilling prophecies are often found in art, as they have long been noticed by artists, writers, filmmakers, and so on.
For example, a well-known ancient Greek myth says that Oedipus, according to the prediction, was supposed to kill his father and marry his mother. Fearing this, the father threw the boy in the mountains to be devoured by wild animals, where he was rescued and raised by the shepherd's family, who replaced his parents. When Oedipus grew up, he left the adoptive father and mother, going to Thebes, where the oracle's prediction came true.
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In the story "Scarlet Sails" by Alexander Green, the collector of legends tells little Assol that a prince will sail after her on a ship with scarlet sails. From that moment on, the girl, and then the girl, begins to expect this event. Once a captain appears in her city, who falls in love with Assol. Having heard of the prediction, he supplies his ship with scarlet sails and sails for his beloved, thus partially fulfilling the prophecy.
In the cult film "The Matrix", the protagonist Neo visits the apartment of the soothsayer Pythia. The Oracle asks him not to worry about the vase, and then Neo starts looking around in bewilderment, because of which he breaks the vessel standing next to him. After that, the soothsayer asks the question: would the vase have broken if the Oracle had not informed Neo about it?
The danger of self-fulfilling predictions
Let's say a person comes to a fortune teller, and the witch tells the visitor that he will die at the hands of a neighbor. The shocked man begins to avoid his future killer in every possible way, tries to set the police on him and generally behaves extremely inadequately. The neighbor turns out to be a drug dealer who, seeing this attitude towards himself, comes to the conclusion that the man knows about his illegal activities, and kills the fortuneteller's unfortunate client. Thus, it is the fact of the prediction of the murder that provokes this very murder. If the man did not go to the witchcraft, he would continue to communicate normally with the criminal, and would remain alive.
In the eighties of the last century, a simple Italian accountant Gasparo Mancini, who loved to visit fortune-tellers, was told by a psychic woman that he would die from stomach problems. The man, always in excellent health, went on a strict diet and followed it for almost twenty years, until he died of stomach cancer at the age of fifty-five. The doctors stated that the Italian's improper diet was to blame.
It is no coincidence that there is an opinion that a person should not at all know what awaits him in the future. And you certainly need to remember that going to fortune tellers and using the services of astrologers is very dangerous …
Self-fulfilling prophecies as a tool to achieve your goal
A self-fulfilling prophecy can also be used to obtain a positive effect, which psychologists often do, calling it in this case the Pygmalion effect. So, in 1985, Canadian researchers of this phenomenon conducted an interesting social experiment. Unremarkable schoolchildren were selected across the country, whose parents were told by teachers that these children have bright talents and a great future. Parents began to enroll their children in all kinds of courses, buy them expensive educational literature and do their best to encourage their undertakings in various areas of self-development. As a result, more than eighty percent of these children have achieved simply amazing success in life in the future.
The Pygmalion effect can be successfully used for personal purposes, thereby predicting health, good luck in business, happiness in family life, and so on. How self-fulfilling prophecy works in this case can be clearly seen from the diagram below. First, your self-prophecy begins to influence your behavior, which, of course, causes a corresponding reaction from others. The latter gradually change their attitude towards you, thereby strengthening your self-prophecy. In this case, the circle is closed, and then the cycle begins to repeat itself, and until your prophecy comes true in full.
Unfortunately, people most often do not even know how they use self-prophecies to their own detriment. For example, a woman convinces herself (or her mother convinced her of this even earlier) that her efforts to raise children and housekeeping are less important than her husband's earning money. Naturally, she begins to behave in the family as a minor person. The spouse gets the impression that his wife is an indecisive and weak person who should not be trusted to solve the most important family issues, especially those related to finances. He ceases to consult with her, which strengthens her in the opinion of his secondary importance. Everything, the circle closes, and its repeated cycles only aggravate the position of this woman, which often leads either to her complete submission to a man, when she begins to play the role of a kind of servant in the house, or to divorce. But everything can be changed for the better if you know how the Pygmalion effect works!
By the way, we note that the predictions of the great prophets, in principle, have the same basis, and therefore the belief in them of a huge mass of people (or, conversely, not belief) are precisely the mechanisms that allow prophecies to come true or not come true. That is why even the most famous oracles are mistaken in their predictions, that is why truly enlightened personalities, say, avatars try not to speak about the future and not predict anything to anyone, especially something bad. Since the future is multivariate and plastic, and it can be changed!