Kristen Capobianco

Soc Reflection #6
11/5/19

In the discussion about Dubois the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy was brought up. The
self-fulfilling prophecy is also brought up in Merton’s essays in which he defines it as “A false
definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception
come true.” In latent terms, the self-fulfilling prophecy can be defined as someone “predicting”
something and this prediction coming true simply because someone believes it will come true. A
fictional example of this would be the Disney show That’s So Raven in which the main character
is a psychic who has visions of the future. In each episode she would have a vision and try to
prevent it from happening, although her trying to prevent the visions from happening is what
would make them come true.
From a sociology of isms and phobias standpoint, we can look at the self-fulfilling prophecy
being especially harmful to minority groups. In specific, we can look at young African
American men. There are many factors that go into a young African American man growing up
that influence them. For example, red lining in neighborhoods impacts the kids growing up in
that neighborhood for the rest of their lives. Red lining is when “lines” are drawn between areas
that are more and less desirable to live in and based off that they decided who will live in those
desirable and less desirable areas. An African American family would not be able to buy a home
in a certain area because it was deemed desirable and therefore only for whites. If an African
American boy grows up a block away from a white boy, the white boy already has many more
options available to him. The white boy would live in a higher income area with a better school
district which will propel him in life. Even if the African American boy does just as well in
school, the school system he goes to is not funded as well and he gets a harder start to life. This
relates to the self-fulfilling prophecy because the African American boy is witnessing how easy
life can be if you are white and therefore thinks less of himself.
A personal example of a self-fulfilling prophecy for me is when I was in elementary school
learning how to do basic math. I was a little behind others in my class to understand the basic
concepts and therefore my teacher decided I should go to the resource room. When you are a kid
being separated from the rest of your classmates you automatically feel like the odd one out.
Since I believed the teacher thought I was not smart and that is why she sent me to resource
room I started to believe I was not smart. Throughout the rest of elementary school into middle
school I still believed I was not smart and then I did not live up to my full potential as a student.
As I know now, I am smart and am able to keep up to the pace as the rest of my classmates but
because of this instance of believing that others believed I was not smart at such a young age
stuck with me for a very long time and affected my learning. I fulfilled the prophecy of not
being smart because I did not find the meaning in trying if everyone already thought I was not
smart.