This week, we had episodes of a very negative teenager. Classes were boring, the teachers didn’t understand the students, the school was too rigid, and friends were annoying. Looking for ways to change our son’s mindset, we looked up the term “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick) was a founding father of modern sociology and a significant contributor to criminology. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University and received the title of University Professor. His contributions to sociology are vast, yet he is best known for some mainstream concepts, such as “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Merton defined “the self-fulfilling prophecy as, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the originally false conception come true.” We believe in something false. Through our propaganda and self-hypnosis, we change our behaviors. With the behavior change, we turn something false into something true.

Furthermore, the Pygmalion effect states that high expectations lead to improved performance, while the Golem effect states that low expectations lead to decreased performance. These effects mean our reality is somewhat negotiable and is affected by others, intentionally or by accident. Our expectations of ourselves affect our performance, and the expectations of those around us also affect our performance. While many want to prove their critics wrong, we generally prove our supporters right.

In that case, shouldn’t we focus on positive mindsets, uplifting communities, greater expectations, and the Pygmalion effect? We can’t do anything just because someone expects us to, but high expectations from a supportive community can help us achieve more, especially if we are confident that our stretch goals are achievable.

Psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote about optimism even in Thinking, Fast and Slow: “If you are allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders – not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented, and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge…the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.”

Our outlook and visions of the future matter, as they can often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Let’s have high expectations of ourselves and those around us. Dream big, for dreams are our maps to the future.

Let’s nudge each other towards our envisioned futures.