We talk about self-fulfilling prophecies when something we have predicted comes true as a result of our conscious and unconscious actions. Jack Bryson, [a doctoral student and] university assistant in the Ada Lovelace Program, is using modeling and simulations to find out which social science phenomena can cause banks to fail. Written by Romy Müller for the University of Klagenfurt. Illustration created using Adobe Firefly (generative AI) by Christian Bettstetter. We encounter self-fulfilling prophecies in various areas: If a teacher believes in a particular pupil, she may unconsciously pay more attention to them, which can ultimately lead to better performance. Jack Bryson, university assistant at the Management Control and Strategic Management Unit, is investigating self-fulfilling prophecies in the banking sector. For this purpose, he asks himself: What can cause a bank to fail? “The advantage of working with modeling and simulations is that we don’t have to wait for a calamity to occur before we can investigate it empirically. We can safely simulate a reality and then test what happens when we apply different variables,” …