Addiction as a Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Self Fulfilling Prophecy Defined A self fulfilling prophecy can be defined as a type of prediction that causes the event to being predicted to occur. In other words the act of making the prediction changes the individual’s behavior in such a way that it causes the event to occur. This means that if the prediction had not been made then the event might not have even occurred. It is possible for these prophecies to have negative or positive results. A self fulfilling prophecy can be made by other people or the individual themselves. If people assume things about a person it will impact their interactions with that person. The classic example of this is the teacher who predicts that one of their students is not going to do well in school. The teacher’s interactions with this student can cause that individual to believe that they are stupid – even if in reality they are the most intelligent person in the classroom. As a result of this the student begins to perform badly thus confirming the teacher’s original prophecy. The individual can also create self fulfilling prophecies that impact their own life. For instance, if they predict that they are going to fail at some task it will change their behavior and make failure more likely to occur. If people believe they are going to fail they may not be willing to put enough effort into the project, and it is this that has caused them to fail.