AOL EmailLearn more about COUNTERdependent narcissists - click on these
links:
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The Narcissist or Psychopath Hates your Independence and Personal Autonomy
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4959
The Narcissist is Above the Law
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4983
The Narcissist as Know-it-all
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4945
Narcissists and Psychopaths Devalue Their Psychotherapists
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/narcissisticabuse/message/4939
Why We Want to do the Opposite of Our Spouses’ Wishes
By: Psych Central News Editor
on Wednesday, Feb, 14, 2007
Researchers have an answer to the question wives have been asking their
husbands since their first day of marriage, “Why do you always seem to
disagree with me or want to do the opposite of what I want?†The answer is:
reactance, otherwise known as a person’s tendency to resist social
influences that they perceive as threats to their autonomy.
The research appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and
shows that people do not necessarily oppose others’ wishes intentionally.
Instead, even the slightest unconscious exposure to the name of a
significant person in their life is enough to bring about reactance and
cause them to rebel against that person’s wishes.
“My husband, while very charming in many ways, has an annoying tendency of
doing exactly the opposite of what I would like him to do in many
situations,†said Tanya L. Chartrand, an associate professor of marketing
and psychology at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. The interest
into this question began with Chartrand’s desire to understand why her
husband often seemed to ignore her requests for help around the house.
When Chartrand envisioned a formal academic study of people’s resistance to
the wishes of their partners, parents or bosses, her husband, Gavan
Fitzsimons, became not only her inspiration, but also her collaborator.
Fitzsimons is a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke who, like
Chartrand, is an expert in the field of consumer psychology.
Working with Duke Ph.D. student Amy Dalton, Chartrand and Fitzsimons have
demonstrated that some people will act in ways that are not to their own
benefit simply because they wish to avoid doing what other people want them
to.
“Psychologists have known for some time that reactance can cause a person to
work in opposition to another person’s desires,†Chartrand said. “We wanted
to know whether reactance could occur even when exposure to a significant
other, and their associated wishes for us, takes place at a nonconscious
level.â€Â
The researchers undertook a set of experiments to determine whether
reactance might occur unintentionally, completely outside of the reactant
individual’s conscious awareness.
In the first experiment, participants were asked to name a significant
person in their lives whom they perceived to be controlling and who wanted
them to work hard, and another significant and controlling person who wanted
them to have fun. Participants then performed a computer-based activity
during which the name of one or the other of these people was repeatedly,
but subliminally, flashed on the screen. The name appeared too quickly for
the participants to consciously realize they had seen it, but just long
enough for the significant other to be activated in their nonconscious
minds. The participants were then given a series of anagrams to solve,
creating words from jumbled letters.
People who were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to work hard
performed significantly worse on the anagram task than did participants who
were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to have fun.
“Our participants were not even aware that they had been exposed to someone
else’s name, yet that nonconscious exposure was enough to cause them to act
in defiance of what their significant other would want them to do,â€Â
Fitzsimons said.
A second experiment used a similar approach and added an assessment of each
participant’s level of reactance. People who were more reactant responded
more strongly to the subliminal cues and showed greater variation in their
performance than people who were less reactant.
“The main finding of this research is that people with a tendency toward
reactance may nonconsciously and quite unintentionally act in a
counterproductive manner simply because they are trying to resist someone
else’s encroachment on their freedom,†Chartrand said.
The researchers suggest that people who tend to experience reactance when
their freedoms are threatened should try to be aware of situations and
people who draw out their reactant tendencies. That way, they can be more
mindful of their behaviors and avoid situations where they might adopt
detrimental behaviors out of a sense of rebellion.
Not surprisingly perhaps, Chartrand and Fitzsimons, as wife and husband,
also take home some slightly differing messages from their experiments.
Chartrand believes her husband “should now be better equipped to suppress
his reactant tendencies.†Fitzsimons, however, believes the results “suggest
that reactance to significant others is so automatic that I can’t possibly
be expected to control it if I don’t even know it’s happening.â€Â