Why did you click this?
We literally just told you not to – it’s right there, in the title!
Do you always blatantly disregard instructions?
Why do people do things they aren’t supposed to do?
Let’s explore this idea and find out why you clicked a video you weren’t supposed
to, or how people can manipulate your desire to rebel!
For a few years now, you’ve wanted a tattoo, and you’ve been saving up the cash to get
the ink of your dreams.
The tattoo in question: An inspirational quote across the bicep, “Never Don’t Give Up.”.
When you explain all this to your friends, they seem…less than enthused.
They tell you that you’ll look like an idiot if you get a tattoo like that, and you don’t
much appreciate their tone.
Every time someone laughs, you want that tattoo more and more, just to spite them.
Every time someone tells you that “Never Don’t Give Up” isn’t grammatically correct,
or that you should get something a little less vague and generic, you become just that
little bit surer that you need this tattoo in your life.
Even when the tattoo artist frowns at your reference picture, and says “Really?
I know I’m getting paid, but this doesn’t look like a good idea…”
It strengthens your steely sense of resolve.
An hour later, you’re sporting a permanent reminder of just how much you hate it when
people try to discourage you.
Congrats.
But it’s worth asking: Why is this a thing?
Not embarrassing tattoos, we can chalk that up to a lack of foresight.
But why, against all apparent logic, does being told “no” make us want to do something
even more – whether it’s getting ill-advised tattoos, or watching videos you’re not supposed
to?
Turns out, it isn’t just spite – there are specific psychological mechanisms behind
our desire to taste the forbidden fruit.
Today we’re going to discuss the scientific reasons people hate the word “no”, why
some people might react more extremely than others, and ways our mental hardwiring in
this area can be manipulated by others to gain control over our minds.
After all, of course we wanted you to click this video.
You think we wanted to miss out on that sweet, sweet ad revenue?
Come on!
The main concept we’re discussing today is known as “Reactance”, coined by motivation
psychologist Jack W. Brehm in his 1966 paper “A Theory of Psychological Reactance.”
In a series of behavioural experiments, Brehm discovered an interesting phenomenon – whenever
a particular option was seemingly prohibited or removed from the equation, his subjects
would become more interested in selecting said option.
After several more rounds of study, Brehm had developed a theory as to why this was
happening: In any given decision, people have a certain amount of psychological freedom
with regard to how they can approach that decision.
Back to our tattoo, for example.
You have the binary decision to either get it, or not get it, but crucially that decision
is yours.
When your naysaying friends tell you that getting this tattoo is a terrible idea, and
that you shouldn’t do it, they’re sweeping one of the two options – in this case, the
“get it” option – off the table.
As a result, the only option you have left is to not get the tattoo.
While this is, in fact, the sensible decision, you lost your freedom to make the decision
yourself.
That’s when Reactance kicks in.
According to Brehm’s research, when external elements threaten to reduce an individual’s
freedom to choose, the individual is motivated to regain said freedom by jumping to the opposite
extreme.
It was never about the ugly tattoo; it was about the principle of being able to choose
for yourself whether or not to get the ugly tattoo.
The second someone attempts to close the door on one of two binary options, Brehm argues
it’s literally human nature to want to pry that door open and walk through it.
Results of later experiments have vindicated Jack W. Brehm’s initial findings, but with
some interesting variations.
Another two psychologists, Sharon Brehm and Marsha Weinraub, performed a study entitled
“Physical barriers and psychological reactance: 2-yr-olds' responses to threats to freedom”
eleven years later.
The study exposed a number of 2-year-old children, separated into boys and girls, to three different
situations.
In the first, there was a selection of objects behind a large barrier, with an identical
selection of objects standing free from the barrier for easy access.
In the second, there was still a large barrier, but the objects behind the barrier were different
to the objects that were easy to access.
The third option was the exact same as this, except for the fact that the barrier was far
smaller.
The study found that the young boys reacted in accordance with Jack W. Brehm’s theory
of Reactance, showing the most interest in the different objects behind the large barrier
– in other words, the objects that were the most forbidden.
Interestingly, the young girls showed a greater preference for the unobstructed objects – showing
that women are perhaps less susceptible to Reactance than men.
This also possibly explains why you see fewer women with “Never Don’t Give Up” tattoos.
Reactance is a theory that explains huge swathes of seemingly anomalous and irrational human
behaviour.
People like being free, and therefore, dislike things that threaten to reduce their freedom.
This can manifest in things as minor as a bad tattoo, and things as major as a “Don’t
Tread On Me”-style Libertarian resistance to all rules and societal regulations perceived
as unnecessary or excessively restrictive on public freedoms.
Such as the legalisation of controlled substances, gun control, and restrictions on marriage.
Reactance theory has been a fertile ground for study for almost six decades, and papers
like “Understanding Psychological Reactance: New Developments and Findings” from 2015
suggest that there’s still plenty of ground left to cover.
While it may seem like Reactance largely results in making stubborn, pig-headed decisions that
can haunt you for the rest of your life, it’s also arguably a mechanism for extreme social
good, too.
Studies have shown that Reactance can cause feelings of aggression to the ones attempting
to restrict your freedom – which can be annoying when it’s getting angry at your
parents for making you eat your vegetables, but vital when it comes to opposing fascist
dictatorships who want you to shut up and get in line.
Reactance is one of the major psychological components behind rebellion – naturally
cultivating an extreme sense of hatred and aggression between the oppressed and their
oppressors that often boils over into uprising, and then, positive social change.
After all, when someone takes away or reduces your freedom, Reactance is the part of you
that’s willing to fight tooth and nail to get it back.
Whether that’s rebelling against a dictator, or adding to a beleaguered tattoo artist’s
long list of regrets.
Of course, an individual’s reactions to attempts to reduce their freedoms are subject
to a number of delicate factors.
Genetics, for example, are said to play a role.
If a person has a condition like ADHD, they’re more likely to develop splinter conditions
like Oppositional Defiant Disorder – which manifests in an extreme sense of defiance
towards any kind of order or restriction.
The same can be said for the environmental factors of one’s upbringing.
Take the results of Sharon Brehm and Marsha Weinraub’s earlier study, which found men
are more susceptible to Reactance than women.
This is possibly due to differences in socialisation between men and women, particularly in the
1960s and 1970s, before the widespread adoption of deconstructive gender roles.
Men have been traditionally socialised to take charge and approach life from a more
aggressive mindset, whereas women are typically socialised to take a more submissive role.
Thankfully, this is generally less of an issue these days, but the spectre of these traditionally-imposed
gender roles still lingers in some areas – and research seems to indicate that Reactance
may be one of them.
While psychological theories use broad strokes to determine larger trends, these trends will
always be subject to individual variation.
Of course, Reactance isn’t the only all-too-human drive to investigate the forbidden.
The other is the powerful force of curiosity.
Pretty much no other creature in the animal kingdom exhibits a human level of curiosity
– it’s this sense of needing to understand that’s driven us towards science and innovation
in the first place.
Even this channel relies on the human instinct to want to learn more and expand your mind.
Take this video’s title, for example.
If you’re this far in, it means that when you saw that title, you didn’t think “Okay,
whatever you say.”
No, you thought “Why?”
Why shouldn’t I watch this?
What’s being hidden from me here – what is it that the people behind The Infographics
Show don’t want me to know?
Much like how Reactance is a drive towards regaining freedom of choice, curiosity is
the drive towards intellectual freedom.
Even if a restriction is imposed, curiosity drives the individual to at least want to
understand the restriction itself.
Like the old phrase “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”
On some level, we’re all seeking to have our curiosity satisfied, and the fastest way
to send our curiosity into overdrive is someone telling us to stop asking questions.
It’s the emotional core of all human knowledge, and of every deranged conspiracy theory your
aunt has ever shared on Facebook.
As we mentioned earlier, though, there is a dark side to curiosity and Reactance.
After all, once you understand it, and are able to recognise it in yourself and others,
it can become a valuable asset in the manipulator’s toolkit.
Welcome to the world of Paradoxical Intervention, better known by its colloquial name, Reverse
Psychology.
If people are strongly motivated to do whatever you tell them not to do because of Reactance,
it stands to reason that you can get people to do whatever you want by making them believe
it’s the one thing you don’t want.
The pivotal word here is “believe”, because real people are a little more complicated
than Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat In The Hat.
It’s not as simple as saying “Hey, don’t give me the security numbers for your bank
account”, there’s always an element of finesse that takes advantage of people’s
curiosity as well as their sense of Reactance.
Once again, take this video: The title is “Don’t Watch This.”
As we mentioned earlier, of course we want you to watch the video – it’s how we make
our living – but a title like this not only limits your freedom of choice enough to activate
Reactance, it also takes advantage of ambiguity.
You, at the very least, want to know why we don’t want you to watch this video.
Tapping into this sense of rebellious curiosity is the core of all clickbait – and if you’re
watching this right now, that’s some pretty compelling evidence that techniques like this
have workable real-life applications.
If thinking about this annoys you, Reactance can explain that, too.
When people use reverse psychology on you, you think you’re acting out against a reduction
of your freedom of choice, when in fact, you’re making the exact choice that the people manipulating
you – in this case, us – wanted you to.
You’re feeling a sense of retroactive Reactance, because you realise that the choice was never
actually yours, you were just tricked into thinking it was.
It’s been used countless times in everything from advertising to war, taking advantage
of misdirection to hide the manipulator’s true intentions, and making you believe you’re
rebelling while playing into their hands.
Sure, it’s a little existentially terrifying to think about how much subtle manipulation
is going on in the world around you right now, but now you know about it, you have the
consolation of knowing it’ll be a lot easier to spot.
What once seemed like pure spite now makes a heck of a lot more sense, thanks to the
right psychological context.
Reactance provides a scientific framework for some of our most bizarre decisions, from
birth to the grave.
So next time someone is telling you that your latest relationship isn’t working out, or
that new haircut doesn’t suit you, or that they really don’t feel like you can pull
off jean shorts, you’ll know exactly why you feel a powerful urge to double down.
Still, all this being said, “Never Don’t Give Up” is undeniably a really, really
stupid thing to have tattooed on your body forever, and I think we can all agree on that.
Now, whatever you do, don’t check out “What Is She Thinking – The Psychology Behind
Facial Expressions?” and “Weirdest Brain Disorders” for more interesting facts about
the human mind.
Don’t subscribe for more fun, fascinating new videos every day, and definitely don’t
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