A self-fulfilling prophecy is the sociopsychological phenomenon of someone "predicting" or expecting something, and this "prediction" or expectation coming true simply because the person believes it will and the person's resulting behaviors aligning to fulfill the belief. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. The principle behind this phenomenon is that people create consequences regarding people or events, based on previous knowledge of the subject. A self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable to either negative or positive outcomes.