← all facts
reactance
You will choose the forbidden option just to feel free.
Psychological reactance is the drive to reclaim your sense of autonomy when you feel a choice is being restricted.
In a 1966 experiment, participants who were told they could not choose a specific item valued that item more highly simply because it was inaccessible. The brain views the restriction as a threat to its agency.
You often desire the thing you are told you cannot have.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Brehm, 1966, A Theory of Psychological Reactance
- What the check found
- The definition of psychological reactance as a reaction to restricted behavioral freedom and the citation to Jack Brehm's 1966 theory are accurate and well-established in social psychology.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.