Is there a reason for reverse/d psychology?

Question

Why would someone practice reverse/d psychology? It's almost like telling someone you are the president of Delta airlines and that person sentencing you to a life much like Jesus.
I would like to know if anyone has studied reverse/d psychology in a educational setting. And if the practice of reverse/d psychology as child discipline can contribute to insubordination in school and later, society in general?

It may be helpful for some, but as a learning tool it is destructive.

Answer 1

I haven't studied it, but I can think of a reason why it is used. Because some kids respond better when it seems as if they aren't directly told what to do.

Answer 2

Well, he never asked me, and my reasons are that I found no evidence of gods existing, and don't choose to believe in fantasies. That seems to be by far the most common reason amongst all atheists I know or have asked. So I suggest Prof. Vitz is simply deflecting from reality, if he's trying to find psychological reasons for not believing in fantasies. However, as you've not provided a working link, I've not been able to judge Vitz's claims for myself. Edit: By copy/pasting your link, I had a look at the article. I was surprised to find that: a) His preamble states: "First, I assume that the major barriers to belief in God are not rational" and b) It is hosted on a CHRISTIAN site, not a scientific one. Hence he is BEGINNING with such unproven assumptions, and there is no sign of any scientific peer-reviewing oft the article. No surprise, as such a presumptuous preamble would be torn to shreds. So it's blatant pseudo-science.

Answer 3

I have not studied reverse psychology, however, I find that children who have low self esteem issues normally start off with issues of reverse psychology and then as their issues gets deeper psychologically it branches off to deeper areas.

For instance, if a popular girl tells one of her groupies that some other girl thinks she's cute, that is a display of the popular girl putting someone else higher than herself and she's upset about it. Think about it. The need to understand reverse psychology - if you are popular and all of that, why is there a need to pick on someone else? You should be happy with your Self and let everyone else marvel and envy you. For some reason, we don't teach youngsters the real power we lose by judging others in this manner. On the surface, this puts a notch in the popular girl's belt but on the reverse side of things, she just displayed a weaker, more insecure self to her buddy but her buddy was not able to detect that.

Another example: A bully picks on someone smaller or weaker than him/herself. It's not because he/she really dislikes the other person, but due to his/her lack of ability to communicate needing to have attention. If people were to taught to embrace these bullies rather than keep their mouth shut in fear of getting beat up, we could stop more victims of bullies as in the Virginia Tech killer. No one wins in these cases.

Both examples displays children who did not quite get the love and attention that they needed. So they act out their level of rage to reflect how desperately they require love and attention. The more negative the act, the more love and attention they need.

You hear people say all the time that it is not their problem, but guess what, on the reverse side of that - it's everyone's problem or it could possibly set off all the Columbine's, Virginia Techs, etc incidents far more frequently than we care to realize. We all need each other and if you shun one person, he/she potentially could turn out to be a fatally dangerous person.

Answer 4

When you live in the south reverse psychology is a way of life :)

Answer 5

I taught Kinders for 5 yrs, but wouldn't use r/psy with them--they are much too literal/young to deal with that!! I went on into guidance and counseling and worked with very troubled adolescents for 21 yrs. There, it came in very effective in a lot of cases. AND with a supervisor of mine, too! The treatment facility always had money problems. Pressure on older/longer employed workers inc'd and I realized that the administration was trying to weed out the more expensive employees (high cost of benefits, vacation time, etc., etc) One psychologist quit and came to talk with me. He had been on a middle management mtg where it was advised that supervisors increase pressure on older youthcare workers; don't give them raises after the 3rd yr and the pressure of the work and no inc'd salary, will weed out the more expensive workers. I realized that mgment had included therapists as well. I knew that each wk's mtg with my supervisor brought more and more pressure on me. I knew I did good work and that he knew I was a single parent of a young teenager. I was very afraid/worried, as MA Guidance and Counselors were not included in the Psych Assocation. Finally, it dawned on me that I knew how to work with socio-paths and other manipulative people!! The whole picture changed for me! Our next mtg began as usual--his applying great pressure on me, all without ack'ging that the young women on my caseload were making great progress! I interrupted him and said, "You know, if I didn't know better, it feels like you're applying pressure on me to quit and save the organization money by hiring a therapist on the bottom salary step! BUT I KNOW that this organization would never use techniques built for building healthy personality AGAINST a person!!" This is called a "Paradox"--telling the truth, but denying that they would be doing such a dirty trick on people! If this is the truth, the person IMMEDIATELY starts getting agitated and goes into denial--thereby agreeing with me. Also, they get a little angry--getting caught in a dirty trick! From then on, the pressure was off!! I NEVER heard another thing about it. "Supervision" went on as usual then. Later, the director of volunteers who was always in those middle management mtgs, said, "You are a hard nut to crack, Marge!" I worked there for 15 yrs and then went on to a better paid job with severe behavior disordered teenaged guys. At my good-by party, I wore a Banana Repulic "T" shirt with a kangaroo, complete with stylized internal and external organs clearly shown. The speech I made started by saying "Some of you may have noticed my T shirt design. The design of aboriginals tell something of the personality of the wearer" (I just made this up.) "For instance, this design says that I have the guts and the balls to jump to another job at the age of 60!" The crowd howled! and the legend lives on.---I did use a kind of re/reasoning with 3rd grade role-playing class of severe bhr-disordered boys. But it's a long story and I used tokens that they could spend any way they wanted. ETC. If it would be of interest, I'd be happy to [e-mail].