Mapping & Measuring
Psychological Reactance
A Research-Hub on Freedom and Resistance.
Psychological Reactance –
a working definition
Psychological reactance theory (PRT) (Brehm, 1966) holds that individuals will resist any perceived limitations to their freedom or control, leading to non-compliance, avoidance, negative perceptions of the source of the restrictions, or even rebellion.
Though originally a theory from social psychology, this intuitive claim led to increasing interest in PRT within social sciences – in particular communication sciences – where it became the go-to explanation for backlash behavior. However, PRT grows in attention in the discussion of wicked problems*.
*The term “wicked problems” was introduced by Rittel and Weber in 1973 to differentiate them from “tame problems,” which have straightforward cause-and-effect relationships eligible for traditional solutions.
Reactance is also a personality trait describing our sensitivity to freedom restrictions. Learn about trait reactance and discover your Trait Reactance here.
We are an interdisciplinary group of reserachers who aim to provide a new, multidimensional perspective on psychological reactance and two new measurements for psychological reactance in thoughts and writing.
We are a research group that founded after the Annual Meeting of the German Communication Society (DGPuK) in 2021. This website along with our first big empirical project that focuses on the dynamics of resistance in digital communication was supported by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) from December 2023 till October 2024.
Our work focuses on how situational reactance influences discussions on complex societal challenges, known as ‚wicked problems‘. We invite you to explore our new multifactorial state reactance scale, our Reactance Process Model, and our codebook that measures resistance to perceived restrictions of freedom in text.
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Read About Reactance
Delve into the literature around psychological reactance.
Conferences & Talks
Find out where you can meet us in the next couple of months.
First Results
Find out about our findings from the bidt project, we provide all studies.
„Simply put, people do not like being told what to do, how to act, or what to believe.”
(Y. Ma et al., 2019, S. 73)
Meet the Core Team
Dr. Lara Kobilke
LMU Munich
www.lara-kobilke.de
Katharina Hajek, M.A.
LMU Munich / UdK Berlin
www.katharina-hajek.de
Please reach out for questions, collaborations, and discussion.
We are elaborating our Website as we go. Stay in touch with us for updates.