Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Robert K. Merton defines a self-fulfilling prophecy as a false definition of a situation, which causes a behavior that, in turn, makes the initial false conception come true. As a general representation of a specific relation between beliefs and reality, the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy is useful to describe and analyzemanifoldkinds of psychological and social phenomena. Broadly speaking, we cansay that the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy highlights the huge power of our conceptual frameworks and beliefs: they not only shape the way in which we see the reality, but they can also determine the reality itself.