Self-fulfilling prophesy

What is a self-fulfilling prophesy? Is there a real phenomenon there, and if so how does it work?

I can talk about something very similar, maybe the same. For many years I have informally observed something I have called creating that which you fear.

There was some CSGnet discussion, probably in the 1990s, that involved a skiing anecdote. A person coming down slope was headed toward a tree, could veer left or right to avoid it, both paths suitable in all respects. He ran into the tree. The discussion framed this in terms of conflict, but not too convincingly.

I want to put this in Bill’s model of emotion, with the additional role of the paleomammalian brain. I talked about that at the 2021 IAPCT conference. Here is Bill’s diagram of his proposed model of emotion. I is input, C is comparator, O is output. There’s a bit of relabling elsewhere for consistency with another figure, no great semantic change.

From the Sensation level down, the behavioral and somatic branches are distinct, one concerned with the external environment, the other with the internal (somatic) environment. However, at the Configuration, Transition, and Event<1> levels, each branch gets input from the other branch. The somatic branch is posited to go up only as far as the Relationship level.

Last year, I proposed that the paleomammalian brain (here labeled ‘limbic’) intermediates between these. Think of it as a watchdog, alert for perceptions of risk or opportunity in the environment. It processes environmental input very rapidly, evokes further perceptions from memory, and passes that input directly to the Relationship level.

Though the terms are in pretty crude positive/negative terms, the question the ‘watchdog’ paleomammalian brain answers is what is this body’s relationship to that environmental situation? At the same time, the ‘watchdog’ sends brainstem signals preparing the internal environment for participating in that perceived relationship. It’s important to realize that fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are not actions or behaviors, they are control of relationship perceptions.

Let’s call your paleomammalian watchdog ‘Pal’ for short. If you want to be sure to avoid some X situation, and there’s strong emotion attached to that, your Pal is alert for any perception betraying the occurrence or approach of X. If perceptual input functions for X are getting X-like inputs from some part of the environment Pal keeps close attention. Pal might even initiate actions to keep the relationship with X actively ongoing, for the sake of knowing just where X is, keeping X under control.

This is a rough sketch of how we might create that which we fear.

“Self-fulfilling prophecy, also known as interpersonal expectancy effect, refers to the phenomenon whereby a person’s or a group’s expectation for the behavior of another person or group serves actually to bring about the prophesied or expected behavior.”

(I take this this to be a broadly accepted definition. I found it here.)

Note

  1. Events are short in duration and well integrated into the hierarchy, i.e. well practiced, ‘automatic’, at the Transition level [e.g. glissando] or Sequence level [e.g. a word, Bill’s example], hence Bill’s uncertainty where to place ‘it’ relative to Sequences.