{
  "id": "self-fulfilling-prophecy.stacked-dependency",
  "term": "self fulfilling prophecy",
  "sense": "stacked-dependency",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 15,
  "arena": "belief and behavior",
  "domain": "social system",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A model in a thing that acts and thereby changes the thing just enough to make the model true.",
  "folk_gloss": "A prediction that causes itself to come true.",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "model.representation",
      "interaction.process",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "parameter.condition",
      "drift.aimless"
    ],
    "interaction": "self-model acting on itself through interaction that changes its own parameters",
    "novel_properties": [
      "self-fulfilling prophecy"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "In 2008, Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy accelerated a credit freeze that its risk models had warned could collapse the firm.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed in 1940 when wind-induced oscillations matched its structural resonance frequency.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "Patients with Parkinson's disease report worse tremors when told their medication is delayed, even if it isn't.",
      "domain": "medicine"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "self fulfilling prophecy"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — stacked dependency"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-self-fulfilling-prophecy.stacked-dependency"
}