A 50-Year Review of Psychological Reactance Theory: Do Not Read This Article
By Benjamin D. Rosenberg, Jason T. Siegel. Motivation Science, 2017
334 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Psychological reactance theory (PRT; Brehm, 1966) posits that when something threatens or eliminates people’s freedom of behavior, they experience psychological reactance, a motivational state that drives freedom restoration. Complementing recent, discipline-specific reviews (e.g., Quick, Shen, & Dillard, 2013; Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Traut-Mattausch, & Greenberg, 2015), the current analysis integrates PRT research across fields in which it has flourished: social psychology and clinical psychology, as well as communication research. Moreover, the current review offers a rare synthesis of existing reactance measures. We outline five overlapping waves in the PRT literature: Wave 1: Theory proposal and testing; Wave 2: Contributions from clinical psychology; Wave 3: Contributions from communication research; Wave 4: Measurement of reactance; and Wave 5: Return to motivation. As part of our description of Wave 5, we detail scholars’ renewed focus on motivational aspects of the framework, and the ways in which this return to PRT’s motivational roots is allowing researchers to push its accuracy and applicability forward. We use this research that is already occurring in Wave 5 to outline three specific ways in which scholars can direct the continued application of motivation science to the advancement of PRT. Finally, as we outline in a future directions sections for each Wave, the assimilation of this research illustrates the ways in which an emphasis on motivation can expand and explain PRT research in communication, clinical psychology, and measurement.
Subfields: Applied Psychology, Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/91cffa234fb7b9266bb6e60ef99431a419d1dacb
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Citations in the corpus
- Psychological Reactance and Persuasive Health Communication: A Review of the Literature (2019, background): “, 2013; Rains, 2013), the use of more implicit, autonomy supporting, and choice-enhancing language has been shown to diminish reactance arousal (Rosenberg and Siegel, 2018).”
- The Influence of Social Norms on Consumer Behavior: A Meta-Analysis (2021, background): “Third, we contribute to the literature on cross-cultural marketing (Rajavi, Kushwaha, and Steenkamp 2019; Samaha, Beck, and Palmatier 2014; Van der Lans, Van Everdingen, and Melnyk 2016) by establishing how cultural differences can determine the effects of social norms on both socially approved and…”