|
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Ann Bendall, Nambour, Australia
What we believe, will eventuate, simply because we are creators! If I believe I will not be accepted by others, there is a strong possibility that I will not be accepted simply because I will approach these others in a closed and self-protective manner. My apprehension of being rejected provides an environment where the chances of rejection have increased commensurately. I may even go so far as to convince myself that that person is not even worth associating with. Whilst acknowledging that they are quite possibly a brother/sister in spirit (with, perhaps, reservations on this score) they are decidedly un-brotherly/sisterly on this plane of existence. In other words, I adopt the strategy of getting in first, rejecting in anticipation of rejection.
Jesus called everyone friend. He did not change his style of interaction to suit the company or situation. He was himself, consistently friendly, and hence he provided the best environment for acceptance. And if he was rejected, he had no doubt that it was for himself and not for the illusionary image he had striven to portray. And even in rejection, he was consistently kind and friendly. What a person!
How many of us create our enemies? How many of us are like poor Judas, who was so afraid to be linked with a cause that failed, that he failed to recognise he was with the successful venture of his life. Instead he left it to align himself with the greatest social and religious fiasco of his age. His fear of failure was so intense that he looked with suspicion at any group with which he aligned himself. He saw strength and called it cowardice. He was the most educated and quite possibly the most intelligent of all the apostles--yet he saw white and called it black!
How many of us are prepared to die for our illusions and when reality is forced onto us, as indeed it must be for our growth, do we reject it, preferring to fulfil our own prophecies? It takes courage to turn around in the midst of the web of our own weaving, and painfully adopt an attitude of responsiveness to truth.
Social psychologists, Snyder, Tanke and Berscheid (1977) conducted a simple experiment which provides a simple example of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Male subjects were asked to have a telephone conversation with a female stranger, whose photograph they had been shown. The photograph indicated that the woman was either very attractive or unattractive (the pictures were assigned at random, and were not really the pictures of the women the men were talking to). Not only were the men more animated and enthusiastic when talking to 'attractive' women, but the behaviour of the women also changed as a function of whether the man they were talking to thought they were attractive. The women, as it happened, did not know what the men had been told about them. Even in the space of a five minute conversation, the man's impression influenced not only his own behaviour, but also that of his partner.
Do we approach others free from anticipatory biases? Do we approach others as Jesus did, hailing them as friend, having such belief and confidence in them so as to markedly increase the possibility of them treating us in a similar manner? Or do we protect ourselves so much from imagined hurts of rejection that we aid and abet its eventuality? Of course approaching others as friend is a risky process. Jesus is a living example of the sadness involved, as indeed he is a living example of the converse.
Reference: V. Callan, C. Gallois, & P. Noller (1986). "Social Psychology."
|
|
