Reactance Theory.

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So recently I have come to find out that I am a high reactance individual. it's really helped to explain a lot about my life and why I am the way that I am. It explains why I can't work under a boss, it explains why why I can't stand withheld information, and it explains why I got so into studying racial equality in school (might be the only white kid in my town that read the biography of Malcolm X) while my sense of reactance tends to be on the very high side, everyone supposedly has this function to some extent or another.

What is reactance? Basically reactance happens in three stages:

1.) You perceive an unfair restriction on your actions, the key here is that it has to be something you perceive as being unfair. People are typically fine with restrictions provided that they seem reasonable and are applied to everyone equally.

2.) A state of reactance is activated, you feel wronged in some way and this begins to cause a strong emotional uprising.

3.) You must act to remove the reactance, you will try and get the restriction removed or subvert it.

What causes reactance? Reactance comes from a perceived loss of choice or freedom. Basically anything that takes away a choice, suddenly that is the only choice that seems even remotely appealing and you get the apple in the garden of eden.

So what have you experienced in your life that has caused you to feel reactance?
 
How exactly does it explain anything, because someone else with "credentials" put a label on your personality? Couldnt you have explained this to yourself years ago by simply stating how you act and finishing that up with "this is my personality"? That's cool that you now understand something about yourself, but didnt you already know you acted this way? To me this just explains the human spirit of independence to some small degree.
 
Reactance is a word? whoa.

Anyway, I thought most people were like this to a degree.
I've felt this way at previous jobs. I quit them.
I've felt this way dating certain people. I ended the relationship.
 
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Hoggle said:
How exactly does it explain anything, because someone else with "credentials" put a label on your personality? Couldnt you have explained this to yourself years ago by simply stating how you act and finishing that up with "this is my personality"? That's cool that you now understand something about yourself, but didnt you already know you acted this way? To me this just explains the human spirit of independence to some small degree.
Click to expand...

Finding out that he is a "high reactance individual" is no different from Hoggle finding out that he is an ISTJ or Norton finding out he is an INTP. It's useful information that's actionable. I knew about myself before learning about MBTI, but it was only when I read the descriptions of INTP's that I felt a revelation.

There is an important epistemological process whereby previously inchoate ideas are transformed into information that is categorized, labeled, further defined, and studied. People can't write articles or books about fuzzy, whimsical ideas, and people can't be diagnosed with conditions that haven't been subjected to rigorous intellectual endeavor.

[MENTION=564]acd[/MENTION] Reactance is a parameter in electrical engineering. Every electrical device has reactance. Psychological uses of "reactance" are new to me, though.
 
I have this, too, and just assumed it was part of the infj blanket.
 
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