Behaviorism

Most of our behavior and feelings are caused by beliefs, which are the result of the meaning we give meaningless events. And meaning requires consciousness. When conditioning does happen it is because the faculty of consciousness that we do possess is not being used. 

Anything that occurs repeatedly (or even once if the incident is traumatic enough) at the same time that something else is causing an emotion will itself get conditioned to produce the same emotion.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated by W. I. Thomas during the year 1928.
In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations. Whether there even is an objectively correct interpretation is not important for the purposes of helping guide individuals' behavior.

1. If many people in one place believe a false rumour that their bank has become bankrupt, and all of them go to the bank to withdraw their money, the bank will become bankrupt in reality, even though the crisis began simply as a rumour. An example of this during the early 21st century was the run on the British bank Northern Rock which contributed partially to its nationalisation by the British government.


2. The 1973 oil crisis resulted in the so-called "toilet paper panic." The rumour of an expected shortage of toilet paper— resulting from a decline in the importation of oil— caused people to stockpile supplies of toilet paper and this caused a shortage. This shortage, seeming to validate the rumour, is also an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

William Isaac Thomas (1863 - 1947), was an American sociologist. He is noted for his innovative work on the sociology of migration on which he co-operated with Florian Znaniecki, and for his formulation of what became known as the Thomas theorem, a fundamental principle of sociology:
"If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences".

A self-fulfilling prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and ancient India, it is 20th-century sociologist Robert K. Merton who is credited with coining the expression "self-fulfilling prophecy" and formalizing its structure and consequences. In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton gives as a feature of the self-fulfilling prophecy: e.g. when Roxanna falsely believes her marriage will fail, her fears of such failure actually cause the marriage to fail.(Now, isn't that exactly what Quimby had demonstrated in the 1860's as he healed people?)

A positive or negative prophecy, strongly held belief, or delusion - declared as truth when it is actually false - may sufficiently influence people so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy. (And of course Morty Lefkoe is helping people to eliminate false beliefs)

  The self-fulfilling prophecy is