Self-fulfilling prophecy

            Self-fulfilling prophecy is an error in thinking that many individuals engage in unaware of how it will affect them in the future. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a false belief about oneself and/or others that leads to its own fulfillment for the individual or the other person (Madon, Willard, Guyll, & Scherr, 2011). The individual or other person may not believe the false belief, however, if someone treats them as if the belief is true the prophecy will manifest itself. Only a belief that is false can be self-fulfilling (Merton, 1948). Researchers believe the self-verification theory is the cause of the error of self-fulfilling prophecy. The self-verification theory (Swann, 1987), states that individuals have a baseline desire to confirm their own beliefs and concepts whether they are correct or not. It can be viewed as beneficial and even satisfying for someone to believe their own beliefs because the beliefs can create and enhance the environment they are in. Thinking errors can lead to social problems which both are created over time and accumulate when the magnitude of the thinking of the individual increases over time (Madon, Willard, Guyll, & Scherr, 2011). It seems self-fulfilling prophecies are here to stay if individuals continue to think falsely about themselves. How are thinking about yourself? Does it affect how you behave in the workplace?

Madon, S., Willard, J., Guyll, M., & Scherr, K. C. (2011). Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: 

Mechanisms, Power, and Links to Social Problems. Social & Personality Psychology 

Compass, 5(8), 578-590. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00375.x

Merton, R. K. (1948). The self-fulfilling prophecy. Antioch Review, 8, 193–210.


Social Media is a Self-Serving Bias

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snap Chat, and YouTube are all major social media channels which are dominating individuals lives. One of the many reasons individuals are on social media is to gain information for themselves that may or may not enhance their lives. The self-serving bias comes in when the individual relates to something they witnessed on social media and comments. For example, posting on a celebrity’s status on Facebook or retweeting what they said puts what the individual stated/retweeted in position to be seen by the celebrity. Once someone from the celebrity’s team has seen the post they can potentially reach out to the individual and a star can be born or dreams can be made. This is a classic example of an individual thinking about themselves and what they want the result to be. Many or most of the time the individual has no practical application nor cares what the celebrity states, they just want to be seen (Newey, 2016). On Snap Chat for example, an individual can create faces of who they want and enhance those faces with flowers or animals, this is another example of the self-serving bias because the benefit is for the individual to be what they are not and have fun with it. Do you have a self-serving bias while using social media? In the workplace?

Newey, C. (2016). Fairness as 'Appropriate Impartiality' and the Problem of the Self-Serving 

 Bias. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 19(3), 695-709. doi:10.1007/s10677-015-9665-6

What are Heuristics and why we use them

            In problem solving, individuals like to use the resources they are surrounded by to develop a solution. Sometimes the resources do not have all the necessary details needed to make a decision, however, in some situations, it could be enough to get the problem solved. These resources can be known as heuristics. Heuristics can be viewed as adaptive tools individuals use that can ignore all the facts needed to make fast and sometimes frugal decisions that may seem accurate and robust under conditions of uncertainty, an example is quick problem solving (Mousavi & Gigerenzer, 2017). Individuals use heuristics daily and this can be the reason some of the decisions are robust. When danger is a component of a problem there is not much time to think. Using heuristics or the adaptive tools individuals have stored can mean a matter of life or death. Using these adaptive tools avoid having to fine tune every detail or parameter of a problem or situation which can lead to large estimation errors in changing environmental conditions (Mousavi & Gigerenzer, 2017). The use of heuristics is neither a good or bad thing, they are simply necessary based on the problem which they are being used to solve. The more functional the match is between the heuristic being used and the environment, the higher the degree of ecological rationality of the heuristic (Mousavi & Gigerenzer, 2017). How can you use heuristics in the workplace?

Mousavi, S., & Gigerenzer, G. (2017). Heuristics are Tools for Uncertainty. Homo 

Oeconomicus, 34(4), 361-379. doi:10.1007/s41412-017-0058-z

What is Social Cognition?

The social world can be defined as the people who surround individuals daily and the correlation of how individuals think about themselves compared to others. Individuals must deal, work, and associate with people their whole lives, especially in the work place. Social cognition has a part to play with an individual’s thinking hence, meaning it is related to internal and mental processes. Social cognition is the way individuals interpret, analyze, and remember information about the social world and their own social world in which they deal with daily (Baron and Bryne, 1997). Many times, when individuals hear something they interpret the information the way they view the world and not based on what is being said or facts. What they know about the person feeds into the interpretation being made (Pennington, 2000). Once the individual continues to talk to the person on a regular basis the assumptions first made began to change as facts are now stated about the person’s background. Once the individual has analyzed what they deem is important, they store the information into memory. However, recalling the information may be a task. Individuals will need to make an effort to recall the information and part of the problem they may not want to recall (Pennington, 2000). Enhancing your social cognition will allow for better communication among workplace peers.



Pennington, D. C. (2000). Social cognition. Retrieved from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com