From the laboratory to the hospital, adults to adolescents, and disorders to personality: The case of psychological reactance

Abstract

Study 1 assessed whether trait reactance in disturbed adolescents (ages 12 to 17) is part of the same constellation of personality variables associated with reactance in adults, and Study 2 examined whether reactance predicts inpatient treatment duration and outcomes. Correlations between reactance and MMPI-A variables among 76 inpatients (41 girls) showed that reactance is associated with oppositional, nonaffiliative, and narcissistic traits in disturbed adolescents as well as adults. Reactance predicted longer hospital stays among 176 adolescents (90 girls), and also changes in aggression, mood problems, and substance abuse among those in middle (n=89) but not early (n=87) adolescence. Additional analyses identified "typically male" and "typically female" patterns of reactance-change relationships. The clinical significance and utility of these findings are discussed.

Nonconscious relationship reactance: When significant others prime opposing goals

“…One potential approach for managing nonconscious reactance might be for high reactant individuals to learn to identify the situations that trigger reactance and plan in advance how to respond to these situations to minimize the chances of a behavioral backlash (e.g., see Gollwitzer's (1999) work on implementation intentions). Given that reactance can be highly inappropriate and possibly even detrimental to individuals and their relationship partners in many situations (Frank et al, 1998;Seibel & Dowd, 1999), future research might explore strategies to overcome automatic reactance.…”

“…For example, individual measures of reactance are negatively correlated with improvement in a therapy situation and positively correlated with early termination of therapy (Seibel & Dowd, 1999). Moreover, reactance in disturbed adolescents is associated with oppositional, nonaffiliative, and narcissistic traits, longer hospital stays, aggression, mood problems, and substance abuse (Frank et al, 1998).…”

Emotive health advertising and message resistance

“…However, Coulter and Pinto (1995) demonstrated that intense guilt appeals impair consequent attitude change compared to more moderate appeals, although moderate appeals were more effective than a no-guilt control condition. The problem is made worse by the fact that the incidence of reactivity is higher in delinquent groups (Frank et al, 1998) who are likely to engage in unhealthy and risk-taking behaviours (Jessor & Jessor, 1977).…”

Negative attitudes about facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic: The dual importance of perceived ineffectiveness and psychological reactance

“…The tendency to experience PR is a personality trait (43), which is correlated with a range of phenomena including antisocial and narcissistic personality traits (44, 45) and with political conservatism (46, 47). The latter finding is not surprising given that conservative ideology, as compared to liberal ideology, strongly favors limited government intervention (29), and so government policies that threaten to restrict freedoms are likely to elicit PR (46).…”