[draft] self-fulfilling prophecies in social interaction
Below is a draft of how I’ve been thinking about the self-fulfilling prophecies that can occur in social interaction.
I’m posting this to get feedback. If you’re reading this, please let me know how you feel while reading this draft. Whether you feel interested and whether you feel like every part made sense or didn’t make sense.
(I don’t want to know whether you think this draft is “good” or whatever. I want to know how *you* feel about it!)
Also, if you could pinpoint the exact sentence or section where you felt bored / confused / etc., that would be very helpful.
Reply to this email or DM.
If you expect them to dislike you, they will.
Self-fulfilling prophecies that can occur in social interaction.
Negative self-fulfilling prophecies in social interaction
Examples
Being Disliked
If you unconsciously expect that someone will dislike you, they might pick up on that and on some level think, “Huh, maybe I should dislike this person.”
Being Distrusted
If you unconsciously expect that someone will distrust you, you might get defensive and proactively try to show that they can trust you. But they might notice that and basically think, “Why are you trying to prove yourself? Are you not already worthy? Hm, maybe I *should* distrust you.”
Getting Manipulated
If you unconsciously expect that other people can control and manipulate you, then you might not use your inalienable power to resist.
Negotiation Power
If you expect that you don’t have negotiation power to negotiate for what you want with others (e.g., salary, social power), you may not even try.
Sexual Rejection
If you unconsciously expect that sex is a bad thing or that they won’t want to have sex with you, they’ll probably pick up on that!
Not getting funding
See: self-fulfilling prophecies when applying for funding.
Newcomb’s Problem
If you expect that you would two-box, then that’s the setup you’ll receive.
Negative emotions
If you unconsciously expect that negative emotions are bad, then yeah anytime you notice a negative emotion you will conclude it’s bad.
// I’m confused about this example…
Self-fulfilling
Meanwhile,
If you didn’t expect others to dislike, distrust, reject, not fund you, etc., then that would probably be less likely.
If you didn’t expect yourself to be manipulatable, unable to negotiate, etc., then that would probably be less likely.
If instead you expect to one-box in Newcomb’s Problem, you will.
How SFPs work
Self-fulfilling prophecies are predictions that generate evidence for themselves.
Self-fulfilling prophecies seem to occur only when interacting with other agents, I.e.: people or systems that are predicting the future. (c.f., “Agency is time travel”)
I find it useful to say that these agents can either be 1) other people or 2) your future self. This reveals two types of self-fulfilling prophecies:
1) Self-fulfilling prophecies in interacting with others:
If you expect other people to disapprove of you, then they might pick up on that and use it as evidence to disapprove of you.
But if you didn’t expect them to disapprove of you, then they might be less likely to disapprove of you.
2) Self-fulfilling prophecies in interacting with yourself:
If you expect you won’t succeed, then you won’t try and definitely won’t succeed.
But if you expect you might succeed, then at least you will try and you might succeed.
// Are there any other distinct types?
It’s hard to notice the SFPs you’re in
When you’re immersed in a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, it can be hard to notice!
“What do you mean my expectations are causing people to dislike/distrust/not have sex with me? Just look! Other people don’t like me!”
From the inside, these beliefs often seem obviously true and ridiculous to question.
(Also, you can’t really do an RCT on what your unconscious mental predictions are, making investigation extra hard.)
What you see depends on how you look
What fascinates me about self-fulfilling prophecies is that they reveal that we don’t get to form our beliefs about the world independent of the world.
There is a naive form of rationality that goes “you can just observe the world, collect data, and then you get to form your hypothesis/beliefs”. Similarly, science usually assumes that observations are independent.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work and self-fulfilling prophecies are a counterexample. When self-fulfilling prophecies are possible, what you see depends on how you look.
Newcomb’s Problem is one example: You get either one box or two boxes depending on what you expect. Your expectations create your reality.
I also suspect this is much of the reason why many people get into rationality and then move towards woo. Some religious and spiritual traditions seem to handle one-boxing and the “beliefs sometimes create outcomes” realization much better.
Usually unconscious
Self-fulfilling prophecies are mental predictions. But they’re usually held unconsciously. So you probably don’t know what self-fulfilling prophecies you hold.
The only way I’ve ever been able to access mine is by having some kind of problem in my life, and then doing some kind of somatic therapy (e.g., Coherence Therapy, Gendlin’s Focusing, IFS) on it. Note: This can take a lot of work!
Example: A few months ago I had some confusion and suffering around making new friendships. I worked with a counselor on this and eventually I was able to verbalize a (previously-unconscious) expectation that, ~“I need to put effort into the relationship or else they won’t.” And this expectation would cause me to do things like follow up with someone after they ghost me.
But this expectation was partly a self-fulfilling prophecy! Because whenever I over-invest into a new friendship, I’m communicating to the other person: You don’t have to put in any work in order for us to be friends because I’ll do all of the work. So why would they put in any effort?
So I realized this and with a little more somatic therapy I was able to change my unconscious predictions.
I suspect that the deeper cause was an unconscious prediction like ~“I don’t have many options for friends… so I need to try hard with this person.” But in doing so I could also be signaling to the other person Other people don’t want to be friends with me. I’m not that valuable to be friends with. Another self-fulfilling prophecy.
// Should I remove this personal example? Is it boring?
What about positive self-fulfilling prophecies?
So that’s negative self-fulfilling prophecies. What about positive SFPs?
Hope
Well, I’m not sure there are multiple positive SFPs! There are certainly many negative self-fulfilling prophecies, but as far as I can tell there is only one positive self-fulfilling prophecy: Hope.
Hope is believing in the possibility for the world to be as you want.
// Do you think I’m wrong about there only being one positive SFP, Hope, and that instead there are multiple positive SFPs?
The absence of negative self-fulfilling prophecies
But it’s not clear to me that Hope is anything more than the absence of pessimism / negative SFPs.
I think everyone is basically born being optimistic, but that they get blocked on this in various ways. It’s as if Hope is a window that gets blurred by particular negative self-fulfilling prophecies on top.
In which case, I think the only action available to you is to clean your window. Find and un-learn each of your negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Then, with a clean window, Hope will be clear.
// Does the “window” example imply anything I don’t want it to imply?
(Which means: There’s no need to try to have “more Hope”. You already have a window. You’re already breathing and living and sustaining your pocket of negentropy. You are already in the positive self-fulfilling prophecy. “Trying to Hope harder” would be counter-productive.)
But how to remove/un-learn your negative self-fulfilling prophecies? — Well, I’ve only ever been able to do this through somatic therapy followed by philosophy.
If Hope is so good, why don’t we do it all the time?
Finally: “If the positive self-fulfilling prophecy is so good, why doesn’t everyone do it all the time?”
I can think of at least one reason: You wouldn’t want to mistakenly predict that you can fly, when you can’t, and then jump off a building.
And yet, in the world where you can actually fly, this might be the only way to test the hypothesis!
So False Hope can be dangerous. I’m afraid of holding positive self-fulfilling prophecies that I can’t prove aren’t unsafe.
// Can you think of any other reasons?
Thanks to Kaj Sotala, Alex Zhu, Tim Telleen-Lawton, Anna Salamon, Epistea Residency, CFAR, and many others.
Overall comments
Comments I have about the whole draft:
// Maybe I should split up this post? E.g., I could split it into (SFPs that occur with others) and (SFPs that occur with oneself).
Let me know what you think
Again:
If you’re reading this, please let me know how you felt while reading this draft. Whether you felt interested and whether you felt like every part made sense or didn’t make sense. (I don’t want to know whether you think this draft is “good” or whatever. I want to know how you feel!)
Also, if you could pinpoint the exact sentence or section where you felt bored / confused / etc., that would be very helpful.
Reply to this email or DM.