THE teenage girl who wins the boy by playing hard to get. The parents whose disapproval of their daughter鈥檚 boyfriend only drives her into his arms. The child who will wear anything except what her mother suggests. These are all examples of reactance: the inclination to do precisely the opposite of what someone wants you to.
You might think this is just contrariness by another name, but reactance is actually a recognised psychological state, first described in 1966 by Jack Brehm, now professor emeritus of social psychology at the University of Kansas. The theory is that when someone perceives a threat to their freedom of action, they become motivated to re-establish that freedom.
Where does this drive stem from? Some believe reactance is an evolved response, since maintaining the freedom to make your own decisions would be a useful survival tool. This idea is reinforced by the finding that reactance can happen unconsciously. When Tanya Chartrand, an associate professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, felt that her husband had developed an annoying tendency to do the opposite of what she wanted, they decided to pair up to investigate (he鈥檚 in the same department). They asked volunteers to write down the name of someone in their lives whom they thought was controlling and wanted them to work hard. The husband-and-wife team found that even a subliminal flash of the offending person鈥檚 name made their volunteers score worse on a word task 鈥� in other words, it caused them to react against what they thought that person would want them to do (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, in press, DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2006.08.003).
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Is everyone susceptible? Yes, but to different degrees. Men appear to be more prone than women, and young people more so than old. What鈥檚 clear is that the reactance drive can be so strong it can damage a person鈥檚 relationships, even their health. For example, adverts with strong anti-alcohol messages can prompt students to drink even more beer. Anti-smoking adverts sponsored by tobacco companies also seem to have the opposite effect on teenagers, leading some critics to suspect the companies of cynically exploiting young people鈥檚 propensity to reactance.
If reactance is so pervasive, how can you combat it in others, or even in yourself? One point to remember, say psychologists, is that people are most likely to rebel against rules they see as unfair. As for Chartrand and her husband, she thinks he should now be better equipped to deal with his reactance. He thinks he can鈥檛 possibly be expected to control it if he doesn鈥檛 know it鈥檚 happening. But does he really think that, or is he just reacting to his wife鈥檚 conclusion?
鈥淧eople are most likely to rebel against rules they see as unfair鈥�
