Reaction formation
Neurotic defence; mental inhibitions level on the DSM-IV scale; secondary in McWilliams' scheme. The person turns an unacceptable impulse into its exaggerated opposite: hate into sugary kindness, desire into disgust, dependence into fierce independence.
What drives it
Proves to self and others that the forbidden feeling isn't there, by overdoing the opposite.
How it shows
Work
Effusive praise for a rival that feels slightly wrong. A manager who is “never angry” and cloyingly patient with someone they plainly can't stand. A crusade against a vice, with oddly detailed knowledge of it. The intensity and rigidity give it away; listeners feel the gush and don't trust it.
Relationships
Over-solicitous care of a parent the person resents. A new parent who can't let the child out of sight, guarding against unacceptable resentment. Loud condemnation of something secretly wanted.
Self
Your warmth toward someone takes effort to keep up and you feel relief when they leave. You feel unusually strongly about a moral issue that touches a private temptation.
What tells it apart
Moralisation: Moralisation reframes a situation as a matter of duty; reaction formation produces a specific, exaggerated opposite emotion toward a specific target.
People-pleasing: People-pleasing is general and anxious; reaction formation targets the particular person who stirs the hidden feeling, and the niceness looks forced and overdone.
Altruism (as a defence): Mature altruism gives real benefit and leaves the giver satisfied; reaction-formation kindness is stiff, and the recipient feels controlled rather than helped.
A test
Watch for leakage under stress or alcohol: if the sweetness cracks into its opposite, or the person can't tolerate mild criticism of the target, it was reaction formation.
Questions to carry
- Under stress or after a drink, what leaks through the sweetness or the disgust?
- Which feeling do I make a point of showing the opposite of, and how hard do I work at it?
How strong the research is
clinical. Clinically established; the experimental evidence is a handful of contested studies (for example Adams, Wright and Lohr, 1996, on homophobia and arousal).
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1905; Anna Freud, 1936
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud