In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation () is a defense mechanism in which emotions, desires and impulses that are anxiety-producing or unacceptable to the ego are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.
Theory
Reaction formation depends on the hypothesis that:
Where reaction-formation takes place, it is usually assumed that the original, rejected impulse does not vanish, but persists, unconscious, in its original infantile form.
Women who scored high on sex-related guilt feelings claimed lower arousal when exposed to erotic stimulus, but physiological measures showed higher than average sexual responses. When Caucasians who actually showed non-racist, egalitarian tendencies were told they scored high for racist tendencies, they gave more money to an African-American panhandler when leaving the testing lab than those who were not accused of harboring racist sentiments.
See also
- Counterphobic attitude
- Displacement
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Projection
- Repression
- Rationalization
- Regression