What is the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

And how can it help you be a better person?

In 1948, American sociologist Robert Merton developed the concept of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.

The theory says that a prediction or expectation can become true if a person’s belief in it influences their behaviour, which can lead to the fulfillment of the prophecy.

In the article, Merton defines it as:

“[The Self-fulfilling prophecy] is a belief or expectation, correct or incorrect, could bring about a desired or expected outcome.”

For example, if you’re a teacher and you constantly call a student a bad student, the chances of him becoming a bad student for the long run will increase because he’ll start to believe it.

Additionally, this can extend to groups of people as well. 

How Reading Fiction Teaches You Social Science

You get to experience things firsthand.

I must admit — I was a book snob.

I rarely read fiction because I believed it couldn’t teach me anything. Fiction was strictly for leisure.

When I wanted to understand something, I read non-fiction to learn whatever it was I wanted to learn.

Well, that approach to learning is wrong because reading fiction can teach you a lot.

For example, in the novel Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, you learn a lot about the relationships between communities and the race relations in Boston in the ’80s. You also learn how this one working class community talks, behaves, thinks, and deals with problems.

I learned a lot of sociology from this novel and I found it down in the crime thriller section.

Another novel that has a lot of social science in it is Red Rising by Pierce Brown. 

What is Double Consciousness?

How can it make you a better person?

In 1903, American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois introduced a concept about the African Americans’ ability to view events from both the African identity and the American identity in his book The Souls of Black Folk.

He called it Double Consciousness.

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.”

What Du Bois is saying here is that minorities can view their community through the eyes of other communities as well as their own. 

What Is The Sociological Imagination?

And how can it help you be a better person?

Imagine this (no pun intended): You’re at a coffee shop and there’s a group of loud people sitting near the entrance.

Initially, you think that they’re obnoxious and should take their loud conversation elsewhere, such as their home.

But then you wonder why these people are being so loud.

• “Could it be a cultural thing?”
• “Is it because of the community I’m at? Maybe they’re regulars here.”

These types of questions are what sociologist C. Wright Mills calls the sociological imagination. 

How Sociology Can Help You Be A Better Person

(Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash)

It can help you be more empathetic.

I scrambled through the course listing to find a last-minute option.

The only available courses for me were an intro sociology class and an intro psychology class, which I had already taken.

“Guess I’m taking sociology,” I thought to myself. “But what is it?”

The course description said:

“Sociology is the study of social life in all its forms. A variety of topics within the discipline will be explored throughout this course, such as social theory, social research methods, culture, with a strong focus on gender, sexuality, class, and racial inequality.”

It sounded interesting enough and I didn’t expect to get much out of it other than the credits.