To install StudyMoose App tap and then “Add to Home Screen”
Save to my list
Remove from my list
A self-fulfilling prophecy is essentially an event that occurs due to our own belief in it and subconscious effort to make it happen. The best way I can think to explain self-fulfilling prophecy is to consider a person receiving a tarot-card or palm reading. If this person truly believes in the reading, they will subconsciously change their behavior, and eventually the predictions from their reading will come true. For example, if someone is told that they will experience good financial luck that year, they might make changes to their daily spending, budget or put more effort into savings.
The small changes they’ve made throughout the year will go unnoticed by them, but by the time they snowball into something noticeable, that person sees that they have indeed had “financial luck”.
While slightly out of my control due to trauma, I have engaged in my own self-fulfilling prophecy. I was a victim of an abusive relationship in high school and was left with a lot of emotional damage that I didn’t work through until years after it happened.
A couple of years ago, I was in a relationship that I had doubts about from the beginning. I didn’t know this person as well as I had hoped to before we engaged in a romantic relationship, and after experiencing the abusive relationship, I had a lot of fears as well as trauma that I still hadn’t worked through prior to meeting this person. At this point in time, I was convinced that I wasn’t worthy of happiness or someone else’s love.
Because of that my own inner dialogue took over, and I began to ruminate. I thought about all of the negative outcomes that could occur, told myself he would ultimately end up breaking up with me after discovering that I was unworthy, and instead of communicating my fears to him, I kept quiet, and waited for it to happen.
While I’m not proud of the fact that my behavior towards my partner changed, I ultimately ended up pulling away from him both emotionally and physically. I stopped spending time with him and treated him more like a friend than a significant other. I stopped engaging intimately, and essentially gave him every reason to break up with me without realizing I was doing it. I never really stopped to reflect on why I was behaving the way I was, and just assumed that I knew exactly how he was feeling, even though he never really gave me any reason to feel the way I felt. Only my past had.
It wasn’t until after we broke up and had time to reflect on the relationship that I realized I was ultimately the reason that it didn’t work out. It was a lesson in communication for me, as well as self-worth and therapy. Because I failed to communicate my fears and concerns to both myself and partner and believed that I wasn’t worthy of being in a healthy, loving relationship, I ended up engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thankfully I’ve got a great therapist now, and a better tool kit to handle difficult communication in situations such as this.
Self Fulfilling Prophecy. (2022, Feb 28). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/self-fulfilling-prophecy-2-essay
👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!
Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.
get help with your assignment