Psychological Reactance
It is our knee-jerk negative reaction to being told what to do. We all have a negative mental reflex. It kicks in whenever we sense that our autonomy is being threatened.
This isn’t inherently bad—if you're too compliant, you're vulnerable to manipulation.
But psychological reactance can, at times, prevent us from doing things that we should do, sometimes even things we want to do. Most alarmingly, it can lead to self-sabotage.
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