This suggests that beliefs have the power to alter people's behaviour in such a way that they become a new reality in the end. Optimism bias can create a self-fulfilling prophecy: when we expect positive things, we are more likely to align our actions with this belief and try harder to influence the outcome.

Conclusion. Decades of research on social cognition and attitudes have revealed many of the “tricks” and “tools” we use to efficiently process the limitless amounts of social information we encounter. These tools are quite useful for organizing that information to arrive at quick decisions.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief about a future outcome that helps to bring about its own fulfillment. This happens because the unconscious expectations that we hold can influence our actions and ultimately cause the initial prediction to become true.