Entry #1: If you believe it, you can achieve it

I'm going to start this required social psych e-diary off with a bang, or, with a lesson on self-fulfilling prophecy that will properly legitimize my blog's title.

Sometimes, I am awkward. To someone that does not know me very well, this fact may come as a surprise. But it is true. The friends that know me best also know that my self-proclaimed awkwardness is not an embellishment, nor a cheeky attempt at attention- but the dirty truth. My awkwardness and my chosen topic of self-fulfilling prophecy go hand in lovable hand.

Psychologists define self-fulfilling prophecy as a prediction (or belief) that either directly or indirectly comes true because of the simple fact that it was believed.

For instance, Katy Perry was much more likely to fall into this giant cake if she sat backstage before her show believing that she would. The funny thing is, she probably didn't do that and she still fell into a cake.

Mega-rich celebrities are not the only ones affected by self-fulfilling prophecies. I myself have also fallen prey to the endless taunt of the self-fulfilling prophet. I mentioned that I can be awkward. And I can be. The issue is, I have not always been this way. In high school, I was just as weird as I am now (perhaps even weirder). The difference is that in high school, I never believed it. I embraced my freakish tendencies. Cherished my ability to make even the strictest of teachers smile uncomfortably. It was not until college that the term 'awkward' even planted itself in my vocabulary. 

This isn't awkward. This is cute.

I think it began during my freshman year. When I walked in late to my GPSYC 101 class on the first day of school, I was sweating. Maybe because I knew I was late. Maybe because I walked up and down every flight of stairs in ISAT about five times before finding the correct room. Nevertheless, instead of quietly finding a seat in the back, I stood in the middle of the enormous auditorium and panted while I looked for a spot close to the professor (I have bad vision). It was then that I overheard the unmistakeable whisper of the college female, "she's kind of awkward", directed to her friend, but picked up on by me. As I stuffed my freshman butt into an open seat in the second row, I began thinking. Maybe I was awkward. I had always found myself endearing, or at least quirky. But this new observation from one of my peers got me thinking. And the thinking eventually came true. 

I began believing that I was an awkward caricature of my former self. Everything I did, whether it was interact with a professor, or talk to some hot piece at a party, or get in line at d-hall, I thought to myself, "I am so awkward." But none of those activities were ever awkward or uncomfortable to me in high school. Back then, nothing was off limits. I used to play a game called 'satellite' when the final bell rang, and the game involved me finding a random stranger and running around them in an orbit until they said something or made a hasty get away. No shame. 

No shame, and also no boyfriend. 

But the carefree sparkle of my high school high school behavior was no more. I had turned awkward, almost instantaneously, and everyone knew it. Even high school friends who also went to JMU picked up on it. My best guy friend Kyle asked me point-blank, "What the hell happened to you? Where's your swag?" I answered by looking down and the floor and smiling sheepishly. Who was I?! Had the prophecy been fulfilled? Did my belief in my own awkwardness magically transform me into a creepy mixture of Kevin from the Wonder Years and Eliza Thornberry?

Self-fulfilling prophecy would say, yes. Yes it had. In 1968, psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson gave a classroom of elementary school students a test and then informed the teacher that a few of the students were "unusually clever", though the students had actually scored quite averagely. The researchers came back at the end of the year and administered the same test. The children named above-average improved their scores exponentially better than the kids who were not singled out. This early example of self-fulfilling prophecy set the framework for a number of studies on the phenomenon- studies that continue today. 

Someone else make her believe she is above average because I'm losing faith in humanity. 

In conclusion, self-fulfilling prophecies can help someone just as much as they can hinder them. And my own social awkwardness is a small price to pay for the lesson in psychology that it has helped me understand. 

However, the next time I need an example for this topic, I think that I will start firmly believing in my nonexistent talent for dancing. We will see how that works out. 

Nope. Still an idiot.