Isolation (psychology)

Last updated

Isolation (German : Isolierung) is a defence mechanism in psychoanalytic theory, first proposed by Sigmund Freud. While related to repression, the concept distinguishes itself in several ways. It is characterized as a mental process involving the creation of a gap between an unpleasant or threatening cognition and other thoughts and feelings. By minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or self concept. [1] Freud illustrated the concept with the example of a person beginning a train of thought and then pausing for a moment before continuing to a different subject. His theory stated that by inserting an interval, the person was "letting it be understood symbolically that he will not allow his thoughts about that impression or activity to come into associative contact with other thoughts." [2] As a defense against harmful thoughts, isolation prevents the self from allowing these cognitions to become recurrent and possibly damaging to the self-concept.

Contents

Evidence

A wide range of studies support the conclusion that people defend themselves against threats by mentally isolating them. Repressors have been shown to process information in a rushed, shallow, or minimal fashion. [3] When presented with some negative information, they will often generate spontaneous happy thoughts or feelings, minimizing its impact. [1] Depressed people process information much more thoroughly, whether it is good or bad. This high level of processing develops strong associative links with similar information. When a depressed person tries to avoid damaging cognition, they often think of some other negatively affecting thought. [4] Evidence from human and animal studies shows that isolation prompts sensitivity to social threats and motivates the renewal of social connections. [5]

One study showed that people would remain satisfied with their performance in the face of negative feedback as long as they could keep the feedback isolated from performance standards. The researchers would present the standards either before the performance, or after the performance but before the feedback, or after both the performance and the feedback. The people who received the standards early recalled them as well as the others, but simply ignored them. They managed to isolate their feedback from the standards, thereby minimizing the threat to their self-esteem. Those who received the standards later were less satisfied with their performance, unable to avoid their lack of success as compared to the norm. [6] This form of isolation has been referred to as trivializing. [1]

Another noteworthy type of isolation is referred to as "temporal bracketing," in which some perceived failure or shortcoming is buried away in one's past, effectively removing its impact on the current self. This type of separation from the past can be seen in religious conversion or "born again" experiences, in certain drug addiction recovery programs, and in the throwing away of delinquent files in the legal system. [1] These socially accepted practices effectively make isolation socially permissible, at least in certain instances; and those behaviors seem to relieve some of the stress from past events. People with low self-esteem often use temporal bracketing when describing past failures. By isolating themselves from whatever misdeed they are bringing to cognition, they contend that it has nothing to do with their current state or relationships with people. [7]

Effect

Habitual repressors have been shown to have fewer unhappy memories than other people, but the difference rests in the secondary associations. [1] Research on repressors concluded that they had equally strong negative reactions to bad memories; however, those memories did not evoke other negative feelings as much as they did for non-repressors. [8] The phrase "architecture of less complex emotions" was created to describe this phenomenon. [1] [8] Repressors have bad memories just like anyone else, but they are less troubled by them because they are relatively isolated in memory. [1] Most current researchers have agreed that isolation is one of the most effective and important mechanisms of defense from harmful cognitions. [1] It is a coping mechanism that does not require delusions of reality, which makes it more plausible than some alternatives (denial, sublimation, projection, etc.). Further research will be needed for accounts of isolation to be considered fully concrete. [1]

Related Research Articles

Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth, abilities, or morals. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie define it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it ."

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism of alterity concerning "inside" content mistaken to be coming from the "outside" Other. It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world. In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping. Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.

In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism is an unconscious psychological operation that functions to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts and outer stressors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daydreaming</span> Aspect of human thought and consciousness

Daydreaming is a stream of consciousness that detaches from current external tasks when one's attention becomes focused on a more personal and internal direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-handicapping</span> Cognitive strategy

Self-handicapping is a cognitive strategy by which people avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem. It was first theorized by Edward E. Jones and Steven Berglas, according to whom self-handicaps are obstacles created, or claimed, by the individual in anticipation of failing performance.

In psychology and cognitive science, a schema describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information, such as a mental schema or conceptual model. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment. People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required.

Depressive realism is the hypothesis developed by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Yvonne Abramson that depressed individuals make more realistic inferences than non-depressed individuals. Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs, depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased.

The implicit-association test (IAT) is an assessment intended to detect subconscious associations between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory. Its best-known application is the assessment of implicit stereotypes held by test subjects, such as associations between particular racial categories and stereotypes about those groups. The test has been applied to a variety of belief associations, such as those involving racial groups, gender, sexuality, age, and religion but also the self-esteem, political views, and predictions of the test taker. The implicit-association test is the subject of significant academic and popular debate regarding its validity, reliability, and usefulness in assessing implicit bias.

Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding answers to the questions "What am I like?" and "Who am I?".

Terror management theory (TMT) is both a social and evolutionary psychology theory originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski and codified in their book The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (2015). It proposes that a basic psychological conflict results from having a self-preservation instinct while realizing that death is inevitable and to some extent unpredictable. This conflict produces terror, which is managed through a combination of escapism and cultural beliefs that act to counter biological reality with more significant and enduring forms of meaning and value—-basically countering the personal insignificance represented by death with the significance provided by symbolic culture.

Confidence is the feeling of belief or trust that a person or thing is reliable. Self-confidence is trust in oneself. Self-confidence involves a positive belief that one can generally accomplish what one wishes to do in the future. Self-confidence is not the same as self-esteem, which is an evaluation of one's worth. Self-confidence is related to self-efficacy—belief in one's ability to accomplish a specific task or goal. Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those without it may fail because they lack it, and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability or skill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social rejection</span> Deliberate exclusion of an individual from social relationship or social interaction

Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection, romantic rejection, and familial estrangement. A person can be rejected or shunned by individuals or an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment". The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. The word "ostracism" is also commonly used to denote a process of social exclusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Need for cognition</span> Psychology concept

The need for cognition (NFC), in psychology, is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which individuals are inclined towards effortful cognitive activities.

The negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is a cognitive bias that, even when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative. The negativity bias has been investigated within many different domains, including the formation of impressions and general evaluations; attention, learning, and memory; and decision-making and risk considerations.

Positive illusions are unrealistically favorable attitudes that people have towards themselves or to people that are close to them. Positive illusions are a form of self-deception or self-enhancement that feel good; maintain self-esteem; or avoid discomfort, at least in the short term. There are three general forms: inflated assessment of one's own abilities, unrealistic optimism about the future, and an illusion of control. The term "positive illusions" originates in a 1988 paper by Taylor and Brown. "Taylor and Brown's (1988) model of mental health maintains that certain positive illusions are highly prevalent in normal thought and predictive of criteria traditionally associated with mental health."

Implicit cognition refers to cognitive processes that occur outside conscious awareness or conscious control. This includes domains such as learning, perception, or memory which may influence a person's behavior without their conscious awareness of those influences.

Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem. This motive becomes especially prominent in situations of threat, failure or blows to one's self-esteem. Self-enhancement involves a preference for positive over negative self-views. It is one of the three self-evaluation motives along with self-assessment and self-verification . Self-evaluation motives drive the process of self-regulation, that is, how people control and direct their own actions.

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein people overestimate their own qualities and abilities compared to others. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

Implicit self-esteem refers to a person's disposition to evaluate themselves in a spontaneous, automatic, or unconscious manner. It contrasts with explicit self-esteem, which entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Both explicit and implicit self-esteem are constituents of self-esteem.

Mark Richard Leary is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. His research has made significant contributions to the fields of social psychology and personality psychology.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Baumeister, Roy F.; Karen Dale; Kristin L. Sommer (1 December 1998). "Freudian Defense Mechanisms and Empirical Findings in Modern Social Psychology: Reaction Formation, Projection, Displacement, Undoing, Isolation, Sublimation, and Denial". Journal of Personality. 66 (6): 1081–1124. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.00043.
  2. ↑ Freud, Sigmund (1961). The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 20). London: Hogarth Press. pp. 77–178.
  3. ↑ Bonanno, G. A.; Davis, P. J.; Singer, J. L.; Schwartz, G. E. (1991). "The repressor personality and avoidant information processing: A dichotic listening study". Journal of Research in Personality. 62 (4): 386–401. doi: 10.1016/0092-6566(91)90029-p .
  4. ↑ Edwards, J. A.; Weary, G. (1993). "Depression and the impression-forming continuum: Piecemeal processing despite the availability of category information". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64: 636–645. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.4.636.
  5. ↑ Cacioppo, J. T.; Hawkley, L.C.; Norman, G.J.; Berntson, G.G. (2011). "Social isolation". Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1231 (1): 17–22. Bibcode:2011NYASA1231...17C. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06028.x. PMC   3166409 . PMID   21651565.
  6. ↑ Schul, Y; Schiff, M. (1995). "On the costs and benefits of ignorance: How performance satisfaction is affected by knowing the standard prior to performance". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 21 (5): 491–501. doi:10.1177/0146167295215007.
  7. ↑ Baumeister, R. F.; Ilko, S. A. (1995). "Shallow gratitude: Public and private acknowledgment of external help in accounts of success". Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 191-209. 16 (1): 191–209. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp1601&2_12.
  8. 1 2 Hansen, R. D.; Hansen, C. H. (1988). "Repression of emotionally tagged memories: The architecture of less complex emotions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 55 (5): 811–818. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.55.5.811. PMID   3210148.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.