Reverse psychology is a term used frequently in various settings. People, especially parents, commonly use it to get children to cooperate or behave in a way they want. Reverse psychology refers to a phenomenon in which one influences behavior or belief of an individual by asserting what is opposite to the expectation. It is a method of persuasion which lures another person into doing the expected by casting doubt into their ability to do it. For example, to get somebody to do something desired, suggest that they do the opposite instead. To prove a point, they will rush to do what you desired without knowing. Reverse psychology works better when the other individual is making decisions based on emotions instead of thinking things through. Reverse psychology is based on reactance theory. Reactance is defined as the motivation to regain or a position or freedom after it has been threatened or taken away. It results in one putting efforts to avoid the social influence of others.
Basics and Examples of Reverse Psychology
Reverse psychology is commonly used by parents or teachers on children and adolescents. These are people who feel a strong urge to prove their points and would go out of their way to do what people believe they cannot do. Many parents have mastered the art of using reverse psychology on their children to make the young ones behave well. Teachers also understand that students have the urge to be on the right (Benetka & Joerchel, 2016). Therefore, teachers just act by casting a little doubt into the students’ ability to do the right thing. In response, the students will react by doing the desired. Despite reverse psychology being a common phenomenon, many people fail to understand how it works. The main question to answer is; where do people get the strong urge to do the opposite when challenged? This question is answered using the reactance theory and the desire to be in control of their actions (Sittenthaler, Steindl, & Jonas, 2015).
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One example of reverse psychology involves a family of three individuals: John, his elder sister, and their father. John has a birthday, but unfortunately, his sister has not gotten him a present. Their father wants to get her to do the right thing, but he is wondering the technique to use without sounding too demanding (Benetka & Joerchel, 2016). He tricks John’s sister by suggesting that maybe she is a cheap person, a stingy one, or she does not love her brother that much. As a result, she feels the strong urge to prove his father wrong, and the next hour, she walks in with a nice present. This is a perfect example of how parents use reverse psychology to have their children do the right thing (Sittenthaler et al., 2015). Without the present, John, who is younger than the sister, would have felt bad or unloved. The father knows that the moment she scratches his daughter’s ego, she will react by buying the present. She reacted with emotions without knowing the true intentions of her father.
Another example involves adolescent peers known as Steve and Peter. Steve is known by his friends to be shy. He does not speak out his desires unless coerced or pushed by friends. Apart from Peter and a few other male peers in the circle, Steve finds it difficult to make friends, and he is the only one in the group who does not have a girlfriend. Steve likes Stephanie but lacks the courage to talk to her. One day, they went to a concert and Stephanie was present. Peter decided to use reverse psychology on Steve by suggesting that maybe he does not like girls. At this point, Steve felt he has lost control and acted out of emotion to prove his friend wrong (Billig, 2015). He approached Stephanie and asked her out just to prove Peter wrong.
Reactance Theory
People love freedom and the ability to control their behaviors. The moment this freedom is under threat, an unpleasant feeling known as reactance is developed. The feeling will bring a strong urge to perform the threatened action or behavior to prove that freedom is still intact and not under threat. This is the basis of reactance theory and reverses psychology. This theory was first introduced by an American psychologist known as Jack Brehm in 1966 (Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Mattausch, & Greenberg, 2015). Brehm introduced this theory in an article he published on Personality and Social Psychology in 1966. Since then, more studies have been done to improve Brehm’s work and explain the motivating factors behind some human behaviors. During his time, Brehm went further to expand on his newfound theory by focusing on people’s freedoms and the choices they are willing or able to make when the freedoms to behavior are threatened (Billig, 2015). Many insights and reviews have been done on the theory, including the one by Miron and Brehm in 2006 (Steindl et al., 2015).
There is a general feeling by people that they possess freedoms to engage in free behaviors. Despite having this self-entitlement to the freedoms, there are times when one feels he/she cannot behave freely. In these circumstances, the freedoms are threatened, hence the urge to react by regaining control. Example of the threats includes being persuaded to buy a product, being denied the freedom to use mobile phones at school, and being forced to perform some duty at work. All the above examples describe threats to the ability to behave freely, and this is where the reactance sets in. Steindl et al. (2015) describe reactance as unpleasant arousal. It results from the feeling of threat towards the ability to behave freely. The individuals with the feeling of reactance will only care about regaining the freedom lost or threatened.
Amounts of reactance experience vary according to the magnitude of the perceived threat and the importance of freedom lost or threatened. There are internal and external threats. The internal threats arise from within an individual in situations where there are than one alternatives to choose from during decision-making. They are self-imposed threats since one has to choose one alternative and reject the others (Sittenthaler et al., 2015). The external threats result from either social influence or impersonal situational factors. The reactance feeling is accompanied by emotions, anger, hostility, and aggressiveness. The unpleasant feeling only ends after the urge to regain freedom has been satisfied.
In his further work on reactance theory, Brehm focused on how reactance can be measured. It involved treating it as a trait and measuring the magnitude. At first, it was rare to measure the state of reactance because it was treated as a hypothetical variable, which is just a mere intervention that cannot be measured directly. In 2006, the review by Miron and Brehm suggested that measuring reactance was possible (Steindl et al., 2015). It involved measuring the resultant feeling, which was caused by the urge to regain threatened freedom. Through further research, it will be possible to establish the exact feeling and techniques of measuring them when one is under threat of losing freedom.
One way of measuring reactance is treating the threat to freedom as a persuasive message. Dillard & Shen (2005) demonstrated that threats to freedom of behavior are received as highly threatening messages. These messages will arouse reactance feeling, which intermingles with the feeling of anger and negative cognition. Therefore, the researchers asked participants to indicate their feelings using measurable variables such as irritation, level of anger, aggravation, and annoyance levels they had when they received the threatening messages. Another measurement method is through combining the emotional experience with the perception of threat to freedom. The measure affects people’s intention to help or react (Benetka & Joerchel, 2016). Therefore, the measure is used to determine reactance levels in change context, including personal change or political reforms. Reactance can also be measured directly physiological measures. Threats will affect people’s physiological arousal. An example is an increase in heart rates.
Reverse psychology is based on reactance theory. Using the example of John and his family, the sister thought that she has the freedom to choose whether to buy the birthday gift or not. However, she felt that her freedom was threatened when her father suggested the possible reasons why she did not buy the gift. She then had an unpleasant, reactance feeling, and she had to react to regain control (Sittenthaler et al., 2015). Also, Steve who had a life-long personality of being shy received a high magnitude threat when it was suggested that he do not like girls, he reacted the same way by doing what he has never done just to regain his threatened freedom.
Conclusion
Reverse psychology is common and simple to apply. At one point, each person has either used reverse psychology or experienced it. It involves influencing people to do one thing by asking them or asserting that they will do the opposite. However, not all cases will be successful. In some cases, people react in the same way they are asked. Therefore, people must know when and how to use reverse psychology. It is based on reactance theory, which was established by Brehm in 1966. The theory explains a feeling known as reactance which is accompanied by an unpleasant and strong urge to regain threatened freedom to free behavior.
References
Benetka, G., & Joerchel, A. C. (2016). Psychology as a phenomenological science. In Psychology as the science of human being (pp. 17-32). Springer, Cham.
Billig, M. (2015). Rhetoric of social psychology. In Deconstructing social psychology (pp. 59-72). Psychology Press.
Dillard, J. P., & Shen, L. (2005). On the nature of reactance and its role in persuasive health communication. Communication Monographs , 72 (2), 144-168.
Sittenthaler, S., Steindl, C., & Jonas, E. (2015). Legitimate vs. illegitimate restrictions–a motivational and physiological approach investigating reactance processes. Frontiers in psychology , 6 , 632.
Steindl, C., Jonas, E., Sittenthaler, S., Traut-Mattausch, E., & Greenberg, J. (2015). Understanding psychological reactance. Zeitschrift für Psychologie .
