What Thomas Theorem is? If you think fake news and “guaranteed” predictions are just unrealistic gossip, you’re right. However, that only holds true until a sufficient number of people start to believe them.
Why Do Our Expectations Influence the World and the People Around Us So That They Ultimately Fulfill Our Original Predictions?
A bigger problem than the events themselves is their interpretations
Surrounded by the pressing present, we often perceive today’s time as crisis-ridden and exceptionally problematic. I often hear that we live in a fast-paced and turbulent era and that things are out of place. We fear that the world is changing and that we have no influence over its form anymore. It’s not surprising. One event follows another, and the overload of information creates a sense of constant pressure, in which there seems to be no peace and good news.
However, we forget that we ourselves are co-creators of the spirit of the age in which we live. Even with a little distance, we can convince ourselves that our disputes are more than anything else just petty squabbling, and our fears are more a fear of our own shadow than a real reflection of a seemingly collapsing world.
It is not difficult to succumb to dissatisfaction and nervousness. It is not hard to confuse the reality of media bubbles with the world itself. We could dismiss this “succumbing to fear” as insignificant noise that will fall into oblivion once other, newer, and more urgent events appear. We could—if riding the wave of the most contemporary present didn’t carry risks that we should avoid in our own interest.
Those risks are not so much the events themselves as their interpretations. What do I mean by that? Simply that if a certain situation is defined by people as real, it becomes real in its consequences. We unconsciously influence the world and the people around us in such a way that they fulfill our original prediction. Or, put another way—what we think is going to happen will happen.
This is an idea that American sociologist William Isaac Thomas formulated back in the 1930s, which became known as the so-called Thomas Theorem.
Thomas Theorem
“If a certain situation is defined by people as real, it becomes real in its consequences.” People thus act based on who they believe they are, and their subjective interpretations of situations can manifest in real life, becoming real (true) for themselves. (MERTON, R. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy)
In simpler terms, people give their own meaning to subjectively perceived situations. They interpret the world not based on objective criteria but rather solely through subjective interpretations that may have nothing to do with reality. Yet, they can still manifest in real life through how people react to these “presumed” situations, considering them real at that moment.
Real Consequences of Unreal Situations
A commonly cited example of the practical manifestation of Thomas theorem is the stock market crises, where alarmist news about negative developments actually causes that negative development. The issue of this sociological phenomenon is also often mentioned in connection with prejudices against minorities—the behavior exhibited by these minorities can often be linked to the expectations that the majority society has of them. (Wiki)
However, the consequences can be much more severe.
In March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in San Diego, USA, committed suicide. They died believing that the planet Earth was facing an apocalypse in the near future and that the only way to survive this inevitable end was to board an alien spacecraft traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet, which passed by Earth that year. Unfortunately, they were also convinced that such evacuation could only be carried out by killing themselves.
Hiro Onoda story
Another example can be Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who refused to believe reports of the end of World War II. He fought and hid in the Philippine jungle until 1974, during which time he killed around thirty Filipinos, mostly farmers and fishermen. He conducted guerrilla warfare and considered all attempts to convince him of the war’s end as traps set by the enemy (including a leaflet signed by a Japanese general or visits from his father or brother, who tried to speak to him using megaphones).
Onoda thus confirmed through his fight that if people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. We can also mention the close connection of such reactions with the so-called “siege mentality.” This refers to a shared sense of threat that may or may not be real. The term itself derives from the actual experiences of besieged military units, “reminding us of stressed soldiers in a besieged bunker. With weapons drawn, they sit at the openings ready to kill anyone who appears within range—regardless of whether it might be a friend or reinforcement.” (Ivan Brezina)
It can also refer to groupthink, which was defined by social psychologist Irving L. Janis. According to him, it is “a way of thinking that people fall into when they are members of a significantly cohesive group, in which the desire for consensus outweighs the motivation to realistically evaluate alternative courses of action.” In other words, we encounter collective irrational decision-making (typical manifestations of groupthink include the illusion of invulnerability, rationalization of poor decisions, belief in moral superiority, self-censorship, and stereotyping of other groups, etc.) (Koukolík).
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Sociologist Robert K. Merton bases his theory of self-fulfilling prophecy on Thomas theorem. He derives from the theorem that “people react not only to the objective characteristics of the situation but also—and sometimes primarily—to the meaning that this situation has for them.” Merton also believes that if this principle were generally better known, more people would understand the functioning of our society.
The assumption of the so-called self-fulfilling prophecy states that if a thesis (usually incorrect) is deemed real, it causes a reaction that ultimately leads to the original idea coming true. (MERTON, R. K. Studies in Sociological Theory)
Furthermore, Merton states that:
“public definitions of situations (prophecies or predictions) become an integral part of the situation, thereby influencing subsequent developments.”
He illustrates this principle with the example of Black Wednesday in banking and says—once a sufficient number of depositors believe rumors about a bank’s insolvency, no proportionate liquidity of its assets will help, and the bank will indeed become insolvent. This helps to understand what happened to hundreds of banks in the 1930s.
At a certain point, the actual state of affairs simply ceases to be a relevant factor. By applying Thomas theorem in combination with the self-fulfilling prophecy to the heated current social debate, we can see significant risks. If a sufficient number of people convince themselves of the inevitability of the disintegration of the European Union or of an absolute conflict with Muslims, these could become very real and ultimately lead to actual disintegration or conflict.
Merton himself gives the example of war between two nations. An increasing number of people believe that war is inevitable. Leaders of these two nations, driven by this conviction, become increasingly alienated from each other and quickly respond to every “offensive” act from the other side. Military potential expands, stockpiles of resources increase, and the number of armed men grows until the expectation of war helps create a real conflict.
Experiment – The Pygmalion Effect
The famous experiment “Pygmalion in the Classroom” conducted by psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson took place at the end of the 1960s and focused on the effects of teachers’ expectations on students’ performance. It showed that higher expectations lead to improved performance.
The experimenters gave tests to elementary school students and told the teachers that it was an IQ assessment to determine whether the students had academic potential. They then selected students with average results but informed the teachers that these students had been rated as above-average intelligent. After some time, these students indeed began to achieve above-average results, due to the teachers approaching them differently than other students—they spent more time with them, called on them in class, and subsequently praised them. This increased their motivation and self-confidence, leading to better results. (Wikisofia)
However, it also turned out that negative performance expectations lead to a decrease in performance, resulting in negative predictions. The phenomenon where negative expectations lead to negative outcomes was named the Golem Effect.
Conclusion
It has been confirmed that development usually confirms expectations, whether positive or negative, regardless of whether these were originally formed by mere conviction.
As Josef Melichár aptly points out in one of his articles, human relationships are not a simple line but a tangled ball of causes and effects, in which we often go around in circles. When we accept a prejudice about a person’s inability, we begin to create an atmosphere that subtly pushes them toward this behavior. And if such a statement is confirmed, despite all the disappointment, I am actually glad in the end because people love their own truth more than anything else, adds Melichár.
But it’s not just about incapacity. Any prejudices and stereotypes we can imagine are at play—whether it concerns race, faith, gender, sexual orientation, or any distinguishing characteristic.
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