A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly
causes itself to become true. Although examples of such prophecies can be
found in human literature as far back as ancient Greece and ancient India,
it is 20th-century sociologist Robert K. Merton who is credited with coining
the expression "self-fulfilling prophecy" and formalizing its structure and
consequences. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton gives
as a feature of the self-fulfilling prophecy:

" The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false
definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original
false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling
prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual
course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.[1] "

In other words, a true prophetic statement - a prophecy declared as truth
when it is not - may sufficiently influence people, either through fear or
logical confusion, so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the false
prophecy.

[edit] History of the concept
Robert K. Merton's concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy stems from the
Thomas theorem, which states that:

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.[2]
According to Thomas, people do not react only to the situations they are in,
but also, and often primarily, to the way they perceive the situations and
to the meaning they assign to these situations. Therefore, their behavior is
determined in part by their perception and the meaning they ascribe to the
situations they are in, rather than by the situations themselves. Once
people convince themselves that a situation really has a certain meaning,
regardless of whether it actually does, they will take very real actions in
consequence.

Merton took the concept a step further and applied it to recent social
phenomena. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, he conceives of
the fictional bank of Cartwright Millingville. It is a typical bank, and
Millingville has run it honestly and quite properly. As a result, like all
banks, it has some liquid assets (cash), but most of its assets are invested
in various ventures. Then one day, a large number of customers come to the
bank at once -the exact reason is never made clear. Customers, seeing so
many people at the bank, begin to worry. False rumors spread that something
is wrong with the bank and more customers rush to the bank to try to get
some of their money out while they still can. The number of customers at the
bank increases, as does their annoyance and excitement, which in turn fuels
the false rumors of the bank's insolvency and upcoming bankruptcy, causing
more customers to come and try to withdraw their money. At the beginning of
the day - the last one for Millingville's bank - the bank was not insolvent.
But the rumor of insolvency caused a sudden demand of withdrawal of too many
customers, which could not be answered, causing the bank to become insolvent
and declare bankruptcy. Merton concludes this example with the following
analysis:

The parable tells us that public definitions of a situation (prophecies or
predictions) become an integral part of the situation and thus affect
subsequent developments, This is peculiar to human affairs. It is not found
in the world of nature, untouched by human hands. Predictions of the return
of Halley's comet do not influence its orbit. But the rumored insolvency of
Millingville's bank did affect the actual outcome. The prophecy of collapse
led to its own fulfillment.[1]

Merton concluded that the only way to break the cycle of self-fulfilling
prophecy is by redefining the propositions on which its false assumptions
are originally based.

Philosopher Karl Popper called the phenomenon the Oedipus effect.

"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 fulfillment 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"[3]

[edit] Applications
Examples abound in studies of cognitive dissonance theory and the related
self-perception theory; people will often change their attitudes to come
into line with what they profess publicly.

In the US the concept was broadly and consistently applied in the field of
public education reform, following the "War on Poverty". T. Brameld noted
"In simplest terms, education already projects and thereby reinforces
whatever habits of personal and cultural life are considered to be
acceptable and dominant"[4] The effects of teacher attitudes, beliefs and
values, affecting their expectations have been tested repeatedly.[5]

The phenomenon of the "inevitability of war" is a self-fulfilling prophecy
that has received considerable study.[6]

The idea is similar to that discussed by the philosopher William James as
The Will to Believe. But James viewed it positively, as the self-validation
of a belief. Just as, in Merton's example, the belief that a bank is
insolvent may help create the fact, so too on the positive side, confidence
in the bank's prospects may help brighten them. A more Jamesian example: a
swain, convinced that the fair maiden must love him, may prove more
effective in his wooing than he would had his initial prophecy been
defeatist.

Other specific examples discussed in psychology include:

a.. 'Clever Hans' effect
b.. Observer-expectancy effect
c.. Hawthorne effect
d.. Placebo effect
e.. Pygmalion effect
f.. Stereotype threat

[edit] Literature, media, and the arts
In literature, self-fulfilling prophecies are often used as plot devices.
They have been used in stories for millennia, but have gained a lot of
popularity recently in the science fiction genre. They are typically used
ironically, with the prophesied events coming to pass due to the actions of
one trying to prevent the prophecy. They are also sometimes used as comic
relief.

[edit] Classic
Many myths, legends and fairy tales make use of this motif as a central
element of narratives that are designed to illustrate inexorable fate,
fundamental to the Hellenic world-view.[7] In a common motif, a child,
whether newborn or not yet conceived, is prophesied to cause something that
those in power do not want to happen. This may be the death of the powerful
person; in more light-hearted versions, it is often the marriage of a poor
or lower-class child to his own. The events come about, nevertheless, as a
result of the actions taken to prevent them: frequently child abandonment
sets the train of events in motion.

[edit] Greek

Oedipus in the arms of Phorbas.
The best known example from Greek legend is that of Oedipus. Warned that his
child would one day kill him, Laius abandoned his newborn son Oedipus to
die, but Oedipus was found and raised by others, and thus in ignorance of
his true origins. When he grew up, Oedipus was warned that he would kill his
father and marry his mother. Believing his foster parents were his real
parents, he left his home and traveled Greece, eventually reaching the city
where his biological parents lived. There, he got into a fight with a
stranger, his father, and killed him, and married his widow, Oedipus's
mother.

This motif is repeated in other Greek legends, as in Telephus, a son of
Hercules prophesied to kill his uncle. His grandfather had him abandoned,
which led to his being raised in ignorance of his birth. He met his uncle
and his uncle's men, who taunted him with this ignorance, and in anger, he
killed his uncle.

The story of Zeus and Chronos is unusual in that Zeus is aware of the
prophecy; usually the prophesied child commits the predicted acts in
ignorance, whereas Zeus deliberately sets out to overthrow his father in
fulfillment of the prophecy. Zeus is also able to forestall similar
prophecies for himself. When he hears that Metis's second child will be a
son who will destroy him, he tricks and swallows her, preventing her from
ever conceiving this son. When he is wooing Thetis, he is warned (by
different oracles in different legends) that her son will be greater than
his father, and so marries her off to the mortal Peleus; Peleus's son
Achilles then proves to be greater than his father.

Although the legend of Perseus opens with the prophecy that he will kill his
grandfather Acrisius, and his abandonment with his mother Danaë, the
prophecy is only self-fulfilling in some variants. In some, he accidentally
spears his grandfather at a competition - an act that could have happened
regardless of Acrisius's response to the prophecy. In other variants, his
presence at the games is explained by his hearing of the prophecy, so that
his attempt to evade it does cause the prophecy to be fulfilled. In still
others, Acrisius is one of the wedding guests when Polydectes tried to force
Danaë to marry him, and when Perseus turns them to stone with the Gorgon's
head; as Polydectes fell in love with Danaë because Acrisius abandoned her
at sea, and Perseus killed the Gorgon as a consequence of Polydectes's
attempt to get rid of Danaë's son so that he could marry her, the prophecy
fulfilled itself in these variants.

[edit] Indian
Self-fulling prophecies appear in classical Sanskrit literature. In the
story of Krishna in the Indian epic Mahabharata, the ruler of the Mathura
kingdom, Kamsa, afraid of a prophecy that predicted his death at the hands
of his sister Devaki's son, had her cast into prison where he planned to
kill all of her children at birth. After killing the first six children, and
Devaki's apparent miscarriage of the seventh, Krishna (the eighth son) took
birth. As his life was in danger he was smuggled out to be raised by his
foster parents Yashoda and Nanda in the village of Gokul. Years later, Kamsa
learnt about the child's escape and kept sending various demons to put an
end to him. The demons were defeated at the hands of Krishna and his brother
Balarama. Krishna as a young man returned to Mathura to overthrow his uncle,
and Kamsa was eventually killed by his nephew Krishna. It was due to Kamsa's
attempts to prevent the prophecy that led to it coming true, thus fulfilling
the prophecy.

[edit] Roman

Romulus and Remus feeding from a wolf.
The story of Romulus and Remus is another example. According to legend, a
man overthrew his brother, the king. He then ordered that his two nephews,
Romulus and Remus, be drowned, fearing that they would someday kill him like
he did to his brother. The boys were placed in a basket and thrown in the
Tiber River. A female wolf found the babies and raised them. Later, a
shepherd found the twins and named them Romulus and Remus. As teenagers,
they found out who they were. They killed their uncle, fulfilling the
prophecy.

[edit] Fairy tales
Many fairy tales, such as The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs, The Fish
and the Ring, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, or The King Who Would Be
Stronger Than Fate, revolve about a prophecy that a poor boy will marry a
rich girl (or, less frequently, a poor girl a rich boy).[8] This is story
type 930 in the Aarne-Thompson classification scheme. The girl's father's
efforts to prevent it are the reason why the boy ends up marrying her.

Another fairy tale occurs with older children. In The Language of the Birds,
a father forces his son to tell him what the birds say: that the father
would be the son's servant. In The Ram, the father forces his daughter to
tell him her dream: that her father would hold an ewer for her to wash her
hands in. In all such tales, the father takes the child's response as
evidence of ill-will and drives the child off; this allows the child to
change so that the father will not recognize his own offspring later and so
offer to act as the child's servant.

In some variants of Sleeping Beauty, the sleep is not brought about by a
curse, but a prophecy that she will be endangered by flax (or hemp) results
in the royal order to remove all the flax or hemp from the castle, resulting
in her ignorance of the danger and her curiosity.

[edit] English
Shakespeare's Macbeth is another classic example of a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The three witches give Macbeth a prophecy that Macbeth will
eventually become king, but the offspring of his best friend will rule
instead of his afterwards. Macbeth tries to make the first half true while
trying to keep his bloodline on the throne instead of his friend's. Spurred
by the prophecy, he kills the king and his friend, something he never would
have done before. In the end, the evil actions he committed to avoid his
succession by another's bloodline get him killed in a revolution.

[edit] Modern

[edit] Movies
a.. Most "Force Visions" in the Star Wars universe are self fulfilling
prophecies, for example the plot of the 2005 film Star Wars Episode III:
Revenge of the Sith was based around a self-fulfilling prophecy. The main
character, Anakin Skywalker, has a premonitory dream about the death of his
wife Padmé Amidala. He searches for a way to save her, and in desperation,
allies himself with the evil Sith. However, it is Anakin's turn to evil that
ends up killing Padmé.
b.. In the 2006 Indian film Krrish, the antagonist Dr. Arya builds an
advanced computer that could predict the future. After seeing his own future
death at the hands of the protagonist Krrish, he goes looking for him to
hunt him down. Krrish's friend Chris is shot dead by Dr. Arya when he is
mistaken for Krrish. After finding his friend dead, Krrish becomes intent on
getting revenge against Dr. Arya, and eventually kills him, exactly as the
computer predicted. Dr. Arya's attempt to prevent his death led to it
becoming true.
c.. The 1999 movie The Matrix heavily incorporates the idea of
self-fulfilling prophecies. One recognizable scene that directly references
to it is when Morpheus takes Neo to see the Oracle. When Neo walks in to
speak to the Oracle, she says "I'd ask you to sit down, but you're not going
to anyway. And don't worry about the vase." Neo answers "What vase?" and
turns around to see what she could be talking about, but in doing so knocks
over and breaks a vase that was sitting on a counter next to him. Neo
apologizes and the Oracle tells him not to worry about it. Neo asks how she
knew, to which the Oracle responds, "What's really going to bake your noodle
later on is: would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"
d.. The plot of the 1988 movie Willow also incorporates a self-fulfilling
prophecy: warned that Elora Danan's birth will lead to her destruction, the
evil Queen Bavmorda orders to kill the baby; however, her attempts to
achieve this result in her own destruction.
e.. In the 2002 film Minority Report (originally a short story by Philip
K. Dick which had a different kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, see below),
a prophecy is made when John Anderton discovers that the Precrime department
predicts that he will murder a certain person, who is a complete stranger to
him, in 36 hours. In trying to find his target in order to find out what is
happening, John Anderton almost fulfills the prophecy when he discovers
evidence that points to this person as the one who kidnapped his son years
before. In the end, the prophecy does not fulfill itself when John decides
not to kill the man. John is then exonerated after it is revealed that the
evidence was planted to force Anderton to commit murder and halt his
investigation of another covered up death.
f.. In the 2003 film Paycheck (also a Philip K. Dick story), Michael
Jennings (Ben Affleck) creates a machine that sees into the future. He sees
an apocalypse that he discovers only comes about through his knowledge of
it, and his potential attempts to avoid it.
g.. In the movie Premonition (2007), Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) acts on
premonitions and thus causes the critical event to happen.

[edit] Other
a.. In The Minority Report, a short story by Philip K. Dick, the
protagonist is foretold to murder a man whom he has never met. Each of the
three precognitive mutants gives different versions of the future crime. In
the first one John Anderton learns of a plot by Leopold Kaplan to destroy
Precrime, and murders him. In the second one, John Anderton, head of
Precrime, learns of the first report and repents to save his position and
life. In the third prediction, Anderton realizes the second report is
precisely the situation Kaplan wanted to create: Precrime giving false
predictions. Therefore, the majority report is Anderton killing Kaplan, and
Anderton decides to fulfill it to save Precrime.
b.. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it is revealed that a
prophecy was made shortly before Harry Potter's birth, saying that the one
with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord would be born shortly. To stop the
prophecy from coming true, the Dark Lord attempted to kill Harry while he
was an infant, but his curse backfired on him, vanquishing him for 13 years
in the process, and transferring some of his powers to Harry. Dumbledore
tells Harry several times that the prophecy is only true because the Dark
Lord believes it. Harry is free to turn his back on it, but the fact that
Voldemort will never turn his back on it, and therefore never rest until he
has killed Harry, makes it inevitable that Harry will have to kill
Voldemort, or vice versa.
c.. The British comedy Red Dwarf plays frequently with this notion. In
series eight, a self-fulfilling prophecy started by the words "Rimmer will
die in forty seconds of a heart attack from the shock of being told he's
going to have a heart attack." In the Series 1 episode "Future Echoes",
Lister learns that Cat will break a tooth. Believing that he can prevent
this, he tackles Cat to stop him from biting a robotic fish. In the
collision, he breaks Cat's tooth.
d.. Several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone used self-fulfilling
prophecies. One example is "What's in the Box", in which a man sees himself
on television killing his wife because he had an affair. He tries to confess
to his wife, but ends up killing her in the ugly fight the confession
triggers. Another episode of an occurrence of a self-fulfilling prophecy
happens in the episode "A Most Unusual Camera" in which several petty
criminals find a camera that takes pictures of the future. They then try to
avoid their demise as was photographed, but in their effort of self
preservation they end up killing each other and themselves.
e.. On the Disney Channel children's television show "That's So Raven", a
psychic teenager often makes predictions and accidentally fulfills them in
an effort to stop them.

[edit] Real-life examples
In January 1940, Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey suffered a stroke. Although he
survived it, an obituary of Garvey was erroneously published in the Chicago
Defender, describing him as "broke, alone and unpopular". Garvey was so
shocked to read it that he suffered a second stroke and died - thus
fulfilling the obituary.

Moore's Law, from 1965, predicted the speed of computers would double at a
steady rate (as an effect of the number of transistors per chip). Since
then, computer parts manufacturers have been struggling to keep one such
rate to maintain their products' competitivity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_fulfilling_prophecy