Revisiting the Trap of Proving Yourself

[Image 1 description] The cover is an illustration of a bespectacled person resting their chin on their hand, with a “?” in a speech bubble.

I wanted to write another article on this topic, partly because I felt I had not made the concept I wanted to convey clear last time, and partly, of course, because I have once again found myself on the edge of the trap of proving myself.

[Image 2 transcription: screenshot of the previous article]

When Expectations Become Reality—the Self-Justification Trap

February 8, 2025

Introduction: A “prophecy” amid misunderstanding

Today, while installing a printer driver and connecting the printer by USB, I temporarily unplugged my external webcam, causing the computer to switch automatically to its built-in camera, whose on/off state is not very reliable. Shortly after our weekly test began, my math teacher called my name and told me to turn on my camera. She must have happened to catch my feed at a moment when it was malfunctioning and had not loaded. As she often does at school, she said it was always the same few of us leaving class early, not paying attention and so on. Whenever she says that, my first reaction is to defend myself: I have never left early or done those things, and I turn my camera on on time. Yet I struggle to express myself each time, and similar incidents have repeatedly left me feeling dejected and wronged for a long time, unable to shake it off. Yesterday I learned about the self-justification trap and realized that this was precisely the predicament that had been tormenting me. In an instant, I stepped outside it. I cannot wait to share it with everyone, hoping that understanding it can help ease the troubles of everyday life.

What is the self-justification trap?

The self-justification trap, also called a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” refers to the way people’s behavior can unwittingly push a preconceived expectation about an event or person into becoming reality. Put simply, the “self-justification trap” is a pattern of rushing to prove yourself when others misunderstand or accuse you. Although this seems reasonable, it can actually draw you into an endless cycle: the harder you try to explain, the less the other person may trust you. You then expend considerable time and energy and may even begin to doubt your own worth.

Examples of the “self-justification trap” in everyday life

Example 1: Moral coercion

After the company pays year-end bonuses, the sharp-tongued Xiaoxue sees that Xiao Zhang has received more money and tries to pressure him morally: “You got so much—shouldn’t you treat everyone to something to eat and drink?” If Xiao Zhang agrees, he wastes money and lets her gain the upper hand; there is no need to “prove himself” this way. But if he refuses, Xiaoxue will call him stingy. When he hastily says he bought everyone milk tea last week, she will seize on that too, saying he is so stingy that he keeps bringing up a mere milk-tea treat. Xiao Zhang has fallen into a typical self-justification trap and will inevitably feel unhappy either way.

Example 2: A workplace misunderstanding

Xiao Li is responsible for an important project at work, but coordination problems within the team cause a slight delay. His manager criticizes his performance, and Xiao Li immediately starts defending himself: “It’s not my fault; another department was late providing the materials.” The manager does not change their attitude, however, and instead thinks Xiao Li is shirking responsibility. In the end, Xiao Li fails to restore his image and becomes anxious as well.

Example 3: Family arguments

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The previous article on the self-justification trap

Friends who know me probably know that I enjoy arguing with people online. Does that count as having a contrarian personality? I am not sure myself.

Since people in China generally subscribe to meritocracy, my gaokao score can often shut them up. The more people lack something, the more they care about it. But I feel that at this stage there is nothing I lack (apart from a girlfriend who loves me), which basically leaves me in an “untargetable” state.

Since starting university, however, I have increasingly felt how ordinary I am. Everyone here has a similar gaokao score, and there is really nothing distinctive about me anymore. I experienced the same feeling when I started high school, going from first in my middle school to somewhere in the middle at high school. After being knocked down twice, I came to accept it calmly. I feel that approaching the gaokao with a peaceful mindset was part of what helped me achieve the score I wanted. I have now been at university for almost two months and have introduced myself several times. These days I can basically face each introduction calmly, rather than having my heart race for a long time as it used to. In different settings, I can also comfortably choose relevant skills with which to “prove myself.” In situations involving publicity work, for instance, I mention that I run this public account (although it gets little traffic) and that one of my videos on a short-video platform received ten million views. In settings involving personal development, I say that I enjoy traveling, especially to less mainstream destinations, such as Serbia and Bosnia, which I visited over the summer. Traveling to countries like these really does build psychological resilience; I can write about my experiences in detail another time.

But this kind of proving yourself has nothing to do with the so-called self-justification trap. So let us revisit Gemini’s definition of it:

[Image 3 transcription: Gemini’s definition]

The “self-justification trap”: A self-fulfilling psychological cycle

The “self-justification trap” is a psychological concept describing a phenomenon in which individuals hold a certain belief and unconsciously take actions that ultimately make it come true. This process forms a continually self-reinforcing cycle that is difficult to escape, as though caught in a “trap” of one’s own making. Its more widely known term in psychology is the “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Core mechanism: How beliefs create reality

The “self-justification trap” operates in three key steps:

1. Forming a belief or expectation: An individual develops a firm belief or expectation about someone or something, usually without verification. For example, a student may believe they are “naturally incapable of doing well in math.”

2. Taking corresponding actions: This belief influences the individual’s behavior. The student who believes they are bad at math may ask fewer questions in math class, be unwilling to think through difficult problems, or even give up preparing before class and reviewing afterward.

3. The outcome confirms the belief: These behaviors naturally lead to negative results. With reduced effort and a passive response, the student’s math performance is very likely to decline. This outcome in turn “confirms” and strengthens the original belief: “I really am no good at math after all.”

Through this cycle, a belief that may initially have been mistaken or one-sided eventually becomes reality. This entire process is a “self-justification trap”: the individual’s own beliefs and actions jointly create the predicament.

[End of Image 3 transcription] The text above is Gemini’s response as shown in the original image; its characterization of the concept is preserved.

There is a classic example: after Trump was elected, someone used AI to generate a picture of Musk sitting at a desk in the White House. When a reporter asked Trump about it, he simply said he did not know and did not care. This is an example of refusing to fall into the trap of proving yourself.

Today I again encountered someone asking me to post verification from CHSI, China’s higher-education credentials platform, to prove my educational background. I realized that I, too, was about to fall into the self-justification trap. There is really no need to prove yourself for the sake of someone else’s opinion. I feel this is partly the result of attaching less importance to academic credentials, and even more a way of escaping other people’s gaze. As commonly understood, people with strong academic credentials often think “Finally, someone asked!” when asked about their education. That is normal enough: who does not enjoy a sense of superiority earned through hard work? I vividly remember my first experience of this. While we were queuing to check in at Dubai International Airport, my mother was chatting with a Chinese traveler ahead of us. She naturally mentioned that I was traveling after finishing the gaokao, and he went on to ask which university I had got into. When my mother answered Renmin University of China, the surprise in his eyes was obvious. Perhaps he had expected an answer like “He did reasonably well” or “a first-tier university.” I think feeling secretly pleased at a moment like that is very human.

Human as it may be, too much superiority will inevitably consume a person. Wherever we find ourselves, we should look more at the people around us and keep moving forward. The things you are asked to prove now will often need no proof in the future, after you have put in the work.

In my previous article on the “self-justification trap,” I mentioned that my math teacher did not think highly of me. That remained the case in the second semester of my final year of high school: I was always more or less left to my own devices. But so what? The results showed that almost all the students she liked did poorly. Even the student in the class next door who regularly ranked in the top ten of our year scored more than ten points below me. Every time I think about it, it makes me happy, haha.

[Image 4 transcription] The inscription on the standing stone in the pond reads “Yishao Chi” (Yishao Pond, literally “One-Spoon Pond”).