Narratives spun by past explanations of events set us up for further success or failure. Self-fulfilling prophecies occur when we act on our previous attributions (explanations) of events. I.e., "I failed the last test so I am stupid and it isn't worth studying for the next test because I'll fail anyways"; fails next test; "See I told you I would fail."

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Explanatory style refers to an individual's habitual way of explaining the bad events that happen to them. People with a more pessimistic explanatory style tend to blame themselves and expect long-term negative consequences that affect many aspects of their lives. In contrast, those with a more optimistic explanatory style tend to blame outside forces and expect limited negative consequences.

Explanatory Style

Loops that amplify, reinforce, self-multiply, or snowball a stock level. They can lead to positive cycles of increasing stock or negative cycles of decreasing stock.

Runaway Loops - Reinforcing Feedback

Aronson, Elliot, and Joshua Aronson. The Social Animal. Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning, 2018.

The Social Animal

Self-fulfilling prophecies

An optimistic explanatory style is characterized by a tendency to attribute bad events to outside forces rather than personal faults. Individuals with this style typically expect that negative occurrences will have limited, short-term consequences.

Optimistic Explanatory Style

A pessimistic explanatory style is characterized by a tendency to blame oneself for negative events. Individuals with this style typically expect that bad events will result in long-term negative consequences that broadly affect many aspects of their lives.

Pessimistic Explanatory Style

Archival research can involve complex measurement and analysis of historical qualitative data. In one study, researchers examined the relationship between optimism and health by analyzing open-ended questionnaires about wartime experiences completed by college students in the 1940s. They used content analysis to extract an explanatory style score for each participant, and then assessed the statistical relationship between these early optimism scores and archival measures of the men’s health at age 60, finding a positive correlation (Pearson’s $$r = +.25$$).

Example of Archival Research: Optimism and Health

Which of the following best describes an individual with a pessimistic explanatory style?

In certain systems, the output of a mechanism (or the effect) can be used (or is desirable) as the input of the same mechanism. This results in the rapid propagation/acceleration of the system, if left unattended or unregulated.
- A classic example is feedback from a microphone and speaker. Sound passing into the microphone is then amplified and sent out of the speaker, which enters the microphone once more. This would continue until the speakers blow themselves out, or more commonly, an internal device prevents any further audio input (which in itself is a form of regulation).

Positive Feedback Loops

"In economics, a poverty trap or cycle of poverty are cause by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention." 

Cycle of Poverty / Poverty Trap

The Matthew Effect describes the phenomenon that in societies the rich tend to get richer and the strong even more powerful. The concept today describes the general pattern of self-reinforcing inequality related to economic wealth, political power, prestige, knowledge or in fact any other scarce or valued resource. 

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