"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’. (…) The prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning."
[Merton, Robert K (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. pp. 477. ISBN 9780029211304. OCLC 253949.]
Some examples:
– Pygmalion effect (with rats: investors [sic!] treatment affect rats’ memory performance)
– Pygmalion effect (with humans: teachers expectations’ affect pupils intelligence and learning curve)
– Placebo effect (double blind: subjects’ expectations affect healing)
– Placebo effect (triple blind: investigators’ expectations affect outcome of study)
– Qigong, Yoga (imaginations support or initiate physical healing and improve immune system)
Related investigations:
– Attractivity paradoxon (Presumptions about attractivity affects judgement in other areas and the counterpart reacts according to these expectations)
– System blindness (emotionally involved investigators tend to selective perception)
– Clifton effect (Listeners’ expectations influence perception of echo threshold)
– Conformity, Salamon E. Asch (Peer pressure: Groups expectations influence individuals’ behaviour)
– Conformity, polls (assumed majority – or great number – affects individual behaviour)
– Learned helplessness (The expectation of one’s inability leads to passive behaviour)
– Luzifer effect (The assumption that artrocities are accepted by higher officials leads to torture and multiple personalities by prision gards) (Lifton, Zimbardo)
Bottom line: Self fulfilling prophecies are EVERYWHERE and the effect is way underestimated. The way our decision making works generally involves use of memory: we constantly make predictions of what will be perceived based on experience. It seems that the default condition of our brains is the assumption, likelihood of re-occurrence of an event is greater than 50 percent.
This explains why easily predictable patterns are more often judged as ‘comfortable’ or – in arts – ‘beautiful’. In music e.g. recognized pieces get better remarks. In classic music listeners’ foreknowledge of the form is used to play with the resulting expectations. (Haydn and Mozart tend to fulfill these expectations 99% of the time. BTW cows give more milk when listening to these composers) and in fine arts symmetrical forms are preferred. Many people tend to repeat decisions they once found erroneous, especially under stress conditions: the same old patterns are repeated simply because they are already known and fear of trying something new dominates.
The mentioned investigations suggest that our perception is the result of what our brains decide to let us perceive. The whole PR industry has perfected itself in fooling our minds, influence our thoughts, decision making and manipulation of our senses.
Not everyone can become an expert in this field. In theory it would be the job of politicians to prevent this kind of manipulation – not to promote it.
[citations to be inserted]
"If you are reading the mainstream newspapers or listening to National Public Radio, you are contributing to your own mental illness, no matter how astute you believe yourself to be at “balancing” or “deciphering” the code."
[D. Icke]