Measuring Psychological Reactance in a Changing World

As detailed across multiple sections of this project website, reactance theory (Brehm, 1966) posits that humans inherently need autonomy and choice. When these freedoms are restricted, it triggers a motivational state focused on regaining lost freedoms.

Over the past six decades, our understanding of this process has deepened, allowing researchers to effectively quantify reactance by examining the interplay between cognition and emotion, which ultimately manifests as reactance behavior.

This extensive body of research has informed our project aimed at rethinking, measuring, and mapping psychological reactance, with a newly developed reactance scale at its core.

How can we rethink psychological reactance in an era of publicly discussed global crises that come with extensive direct and indirect limitations on freedom?

Recent global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have brought unprecedented restrictions that impact the very fabric of individual autonomy, particularly in societies that prize individualistic values.

These changes necessitate a reevaluation of traditional reactance models to ensure they remain relevant in today’s dynamically shifting societal context. As part of this effort, we recognize the need for our theories to evolve to address the complexities introduced by publicly debated global crises and their associated freedom limitations.

The development of our scale involved theoretical work, multiple phases of pretesting, expert reviews, and five empirical studies using several datasets to refine our constructs.

We applied the new model in designing the state reactance questionnaire. It involves Reactance Appraisal, the initial assessment of the freedom limitation and evaluation of one’s ability to act against it, and Reactance Motivation the subsequent emotional mobilization and strategic thinking aimed at overcoming perceived restrictions.

After careful revisions and validations, we developed a comprehensive scale with 35 items across seven dimensions. This scale effectively measures both the appraisal and motivation phases of reactance.

Due to item refinement, we will conduct a third empirical study (N = 1000) to assess reliability in November 2024.


After insights and refinements from our codebook study, we decided to develop a separate scale specifically for measuring reactance-related behaviors. The current scale includes 17 items that address various reactance behaviors. We are continuing to refine and validate this scale.

(Stay tuned for the Reactance Behavior Scale! 👀)