Reactance
Tanya L. Chartrand and her husband Gavan Fitzsimons have demonstrated that some people will act in ways that are not to their own benefit simply because they wish to avoid doing what other people want them to.
Even the slightest nonconscious exposure to the name of a significant person in their life is enough to bring about reactance and cause people to rebel against that person’s wishes.
In the first experiment, participants were asked to name a significant person in their lives whom they perceived to be controlling and who wanted them to work hard, and another significant and controlling person who wanted them to have fun. Participants then performed a computer-based activity during which the name of one or the other of these people was repeatedly, but subliminally, flashed on the screen. The participants were then given a series of anagrams to solve, creating words from jumbled letters.
People who were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to work hard performed significantly worse on the anagram task than did participants who were exposed to the name of a person who wanted them to have fun.
The experimenters then assessed each participant’s level of reactance (the tendency to resist social influences that perceivee as threats to one’s autonomy). People who were more reactant responded more strongly to the subliminal cues and showed greater variation in their performance than people who were less reactant.
“Nagging Spouse? You May Have An Excuse For Not Responding,” by Laura Brinn