The self-fulfilling prophecy is one of the most significant concepts in social psychology. It is the tendency for people who hold stereotypical or prejudiced beliefs about others to behave in such a way as to cause the other party to confirm their expectations.
This phenomenon is found literally across the ethnic/SES board and has been replicated in dozens of different ways. Your beliefs influence your behaviour, and your behaviour influences the behaviour of the person you hold those beliefs about; and all of this occurs without anyone's awareness of it.
So if a particular kind of person makes you uncomfortable, your discomfort with them can cause them to behave in ways that make you more uncomfortable.
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