It seems totally logical to store past situations and their consequences in our memory to use them as learning in similar future circumstances. It saves us a lot of mental work: we intuit what to expect from the situation, what is going to happen.
The difficulty comes when we anticipate consequences in a very certain way and without a realistic basis. This would be a rough definition of the perceptual bias that we know as self-fulfilling prophecy. Which is usually closely associated with another known as confirmation bias (yes, there are a lot!), which is about paying more attention to those elements that confirm our theory of what is going to happen.
Imagine that in a week you have to give a speech to 100 people (a threatening situation for a large part of the population). You are convinced that your voice will shake, you will sweat, you will stutter... you anticipate an unpleasant result. These thoughts will generate so much insecurity that you may block yourself and not rehearse enough. You may consider that rehearsing more will not change that disastrous result. Perhaps the expectation of failure will make you feel so nervous that, in fact, the situation will be as expected (self-fulfilling prophecy). You may even give a great speech and remember more of that little throat clearing at the beginning or that negligible hesitation at the end (confirmation bias).
A well-known form of self-fulfilling prophecy is the so-called Pygmalion effect. In this case we focus on expectations towards others.
It is very easily explained associated with the educational field. Let's take as an example a teacher who thinks that a student is more intelligent. Without being aware of it, she devotes more attention to him, she challenges him with more complex exercises and, indeed, the student learns more and obtains better results. We could also apply it to a negative expectation regarding another student. That is, the teacher's expectations influence the students' performance.
There are many examples:
Economy: What would happen if a rumor spread that a company was going bankrupt? If we are shareholders, we will sell our shares and their price will fall, effectively leading to bankruptcy.
We also find examples of this bias on the big screen. The first one that comes to mind is the outcome of Anakin Skywalker's relationship with Padmé Amidala in Star Wars (I'm just saying that there are few things uglier than a spoiler📽️)
And we don't get anything positive from this? Of course, as if you didn't know me!
The most positive side of this effect is that positive anticipation can be trained: thinking that we will pass that exam, visualizing ourselves giving a speech in a calm manner... And since humans love to name everything, this is known as the Galatea effect.
And how can I implement it?
Generate within you a little scientist👩🔬: Look at those prophecies that have not been fulfilled. Or if they have been fulfilled, have you looked at all the facts? Perhaps you highlight more the importance of those who confirm your theory. This is about being honest!
How important it seems to have faith in yourself now, right? You have to work hard, obviously, but it helps to know that believing you can make it more likely that it will happen.
Can you think of more references from stories (books, movies, series...) that exemplify the Pygmalion effect?