

One day, he is also confronted with a dire warning-that he will kill his father and marry his widowed mother. Oedipus was found and raised by foster parents, under the assumption that they were his real parents. To avoid meeting this fate, he abandons his son and leaves him to die. In the story, Oedipus’s father Laius is warned that his son will eventually kill him. One of the classic examples of a self-fulfilling prophecy comes from the Greek story of Oedipus. This concept appears regularly in culture and art, and plenty of examples of it can be found in literary works.

You may unconsciously work to affirm your belief by ignoring the positive, amplifying the negative, and behaving in ways that are unlikely to contribute to an enjoyable day.
#Believe speech to mumble happy feet download#
In this article, we’ll explore what self-fulfilling prophecies are, how they play a role in psychology and sociology, and how they can worsen mental health disorders like depression.īefore you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. When our beliefs and expectations influence our behavior at the subconscious level, we are enacting what is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. You may not believe yourself to be a fortuneteller, but you’ve likely found that you can sometimes be surprisingly accurate in your predictions.įor instance, you might predict that a project you are working on will turn out exceedingly well, and feel confident in your ability to foresee the future when your hard work pays off and your project is received positively.Īlternatively, you might expect that a speech you have to give at a work event will go terribly, and thus you feel no surprise when you stutter, mumble, and frequently forget your next point while speaking.Īlthough you could take these instances as evidence that you know yourself and your abilities quite well (and this can be true), you might not think about the effects your expectations have on your behavior. Have you ever made a prediction about your life that came true?
