Self-fulfilling prophecy
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A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true. Although examples of self-fulfilling 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 formalising its structure and consequences. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton gives the following definition:
- 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.[1]
In other words, a false 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 fulfil the false prophecy, whereas a true prophecy would come true no matter what actions were taken.
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[edit] History
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]
In other words, 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 a person convinces 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. 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 — possibly because they had all been laid off that day and needed cash, but the exact reason is never made clear. The consequence of seeing so many people at the bank at once, however, is to cause more customers to worry. As false rumours that something's wrong with the bank begin to spread, 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 rumours of the bank's insolvency and upcoming bankruptcy, and causes 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 rumour 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 rumoured insolvency of Millingville’s bank did affect the actual outcome. The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment.[1]
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 fulfilment 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" (Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, 1976).
[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.
Other specific examples discussed in psychology include:
[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 the plot. The most common motif is where a child, whether newborn or unconceived, 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 because the actions taken to prevent them — frequently child abandonment.
[edit] Greek
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 travelled 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 forstall 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 Danae, the prophecy is only self-fulfilling in some variants. In some, he accidentially 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 Danae to marry him, and when Perseus turns them to stone with the Gorgon's head; as Polydectes fell in love with Danae because Acrisius abandoned her at sea, and Perseus killed the Gorgon as a consequence of Polydectes's attempt to get rid of Danae's son so that he could marry her, the prophecy fulfilled itself in these variants.
[edit] Indian
In the story of Krishna in the epic Mahabharata, the ruler of the Mathura kingdom, Kansh, 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 Yasoda and Nanda in the village of Gokul. Years later, Kansh 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 Kansh was eventually killed by his nephew Krishna. It was due to Kansh's attempts to prevent the prophecy that led to it coming true.
[edit] Roman
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 a poor girl a rich boy). 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 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 tries to fulfill. In the end, the prophecy ends up coming true.
[edit] Modern
[edit] Movies
- In more recent arts, the plot of the 2005 movie 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.
- In the 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.
- The 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 so doing 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?"
- 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.
- In the 2002 film Minority Report(originally a book by Phillip K Dick) , 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 nearly fulfills the prophecy when he discovers evidence that points to this person as the one who kidnapped his son years before.
- In the movie Premonition (2007), Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) acts on premonitions and thus causes the critical event to happen.
[edit] Other
- 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 protect himself, the Dark Lord attempted to kill Harry Potter 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.
- In the computer game Guild Wars, it is prophesied that some Chosen will destroy a race called "Mursaat". To prevent the prophecies from coming true, the Mursaat and some of their worshippers, the White Mantle, kill as many Chosen as possible. However, when a group of heroes see the Chosen being killed, they turn against and eventually destroy the White Mantle and the Mursaat to prevent further killings, only later to discover that they are Chosen.
- 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.
- 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.
- In Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, a prophecy is made that only a child from a certain town would bring down King Haggard. Because the town was prosperous under his reign, someone from the town left a child whom he found, abandoned; as a consequence, King Haggard himself find the child and raises him as Prince Lir. Lir's actions, possible only because he was raised as Haggard's son, bring down King Haggard.
- In the webcomic The Wotch, several prophecies are made concerning the rise of Melleck Xaos. At one point, rebel soldiers fighting against Xaos acquire a special pearl that he is prophesied to obtain, which is placed in the care of a loyal wizard. They later catch this wizard handing the pearl over to Xaos' minions, and it is heavily implied that he only does so because he believes the prophecies are inevitable and wishes to minimize the bloodshed as they are fulfilled.
- On the show Desperate Housewives the character Lynette Scavo becomes suspicious that her neighbor, Art Shephard is a pedophile. As a result of Lynette's accusations, Art's neighbors become suspicious and try to ostracize him. Things get out of control, and Art is tormented by his neighbors. Lynette has doubts about her accusations, but it is too late. Art cares for his invalid sister, Rebecca; the stress caused by the commotion surrounding Lynette's accusations are more than she can bear and she dies from a heart attack. Afterwards, when Lynette tries to apologize to him, he hints ominously that with Rebecca gone, he can "be himself".
- The Black Sabbath song "Iron Man" tells a story of a man who travels back in time to warn mankind of an impending apocalypse, but in the process is turned into an 'iron man'. This form leaves him in a non-responsive state in which no one can tell if he is even alive. Everyone ignores him, and lying there in his metal shell, he plans vengeance on the people who don't acknowledge all he went through to try to save them. Finally, he does indeed kill everyone, fulfilling the prophecy he was originally trying to prevent.
[edit] Real-life examples
In January 1940, Black nationalist 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.
[edit] See also
- Fatalism
- Clash of civilizations as self-fulfilling prophecy
- Nocebo: see under "Ambiguity of Anthropological Usage"
- Moore's Law as an "industry driver"
- Subject-expectancy effect
- Predestination paradox
- Selection bias
- Self-defeating prophecy
- Thomas theorem
- Pygmalion effect
- Deus ex machina
[edit] References
- ^ a b Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, 1968, p. 477, ISBN 0-02-921130-1.
- ^ W. I. Thomas, The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, p. 572.
- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Oedipus Simplex: Freedom and Fate in Folklore and Fiction"
