Talk:Reactance (psychology)

Unclear example
The article states, "For example, if Mr. Doe states that he is interfering with Mrs. Smith's expectations because of an emergency, this also allows Mrs. Smith to imagine that Mr. Doe will interfere in future occasions as well." What is meant here by "expectations?" It makes the example rather vague and does not clarify the theoretical point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbugyi (talk • contribs) 16:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

This as well: "An example of such behavior can be observed when an individual engages in a prohibited activity in order to deliberately taunt the authority who prohibits it, regardless of the utility or disutility that the activity confers." That is not an example. It's a subset of the general phenomenon. This article should be taken out and shot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.107.204.78 (talk) 18:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The clarity is horrid, and some sections seem to be raw lit search data (from a search engine that will give you title+abstract) pasted in, without any particular effort at reading the articles indicated.  It seems to fail entirely at actually explaining reactance, but it's hard to tell.  Can somebody who knows well what this is please rewrite it? 71.71.106.75 (talk) 15:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

No citation in Empirical section for "Attractiveness of Unobtainable Objects"
Does anyone know the citation for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbugyi (talk • contribs) 16:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Added the reference of: Sex Roles, Volume 7, Number 9, 937-949; DOI: 10.1007/BF00290976. "Psychological reactance and the attractiveness of unobtainable objects: Sex differences in children's responses to an elimination of freedom" Sharon S. Brehm, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas. Efiiamagus (talk) 17:51, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Pronoun reference problems
From "Reactance" entry: "When a person becomes aware of reactance, they will feel a higher level of self-direction in relationship to their own behavior." This sentence, like many sentences in Wikipedia, misuses pronoun reference. The sentence should read: "When people become aware of reactance, they will feel a higher level of self-direction in relation to their own behavior." --Maclennan123 (talk) 14:36, 21 April 2012 (UTC)


 * So why don't you fix this yourself? --JorisvS (talk) 12:13, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Singular they. --80.192.180.160 (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

"playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance"
From "People using reverse psychology are playing on at least an informal awareness of reactance". It seems to me that "play on" is misused here. To "play on" means exploting and therefore "People using reverse psychology are playing on reactance" seems more correct to me. I'd even contradict the original statement and say that it's critical that the target of the reverse psychology is unaware of reactance. It might be added that "People using reverse psychology are at least informally aware of reactance", depending on what you mean to say by the example. Anrza (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

another source here
Another source could be found here: https://www.tobyelwin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/relationship_reactance_jesp-inpress.pdf

But I can't understand if this wikipedia post states Reactance IS something or that a THEORY states that Reactance IS something. --151.49.185.147 (talk) 22:52, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Eyannaib (talk) 05:01, 2 June 2022 (UTC)