Psychology of Mind and Body

The Negation Effect

Lately I have been frequenting a small handful of ideas, central to the core understanding of all of my feelings and behaviors. The most recent of those ideas was the importance of a role model in determining one's overlying psychological behavior. I am mostly interested in the significance of a father figure to a young boy (mother figures might be less substantial, which may further explain the general psychology of girls with the methods that I use in this discussion), but these observations can be applied to any situation which can be appropriately paralleled. Growing up, children are inherently drawn to interact with society in a way that brings about self-worth and comfort. They want to be accepted by their peers, much in the way that their fathers are accepted by their peers. There are frequent outliers to this, such as when a father's psychology is regarded as inherently distasteful to the nature of the child, or when additional role models force conflicting perspectives. However, we can easily fix this towards a more general case by regarding the full collection of role models as a single entity with a variety of favorable (and sometimes conflicting) mannerisms. The absence of a role model has an even more interesting effect. When I was younger, my father was not around to provide me with the tools that would help me to properly assimilate into society. I lived alone with my mother, and there were no other constant adult figures in my life. My teachers were often detached and uninvolved, our relatives kept little contact, and by high school I was accustomed to staying inside of the house. In the absence of a role model, I instead developed what I'll refer to as an anti role model. That is, I observed in my mother a wide range of mannerisms that I was compelled to avoid, rather than to adopt. This was my mind's way of compensating for the missing amount of information that it required to work out what sort of behavior was traditionally acceptable. Of course, by doing so I was only compiling a manifestation of negative ideals, which meant that there remained an entire universe of ideals and mannerisms to adopt and embody. To see what I mean, imagine a particle (representing my own psyche) that wants to come into existence, and suppose that it is only given a single point in space that it is NOT allowed to occupy. Well then, there is still an entire universe of space to occupy, so it might try any random spot which may not represent a proper place for it. It was the same for me. I had such a wide variety of choices to make, that I never quite knew how to behave in any situation. After a short while, my mind was forced to adopt additional techniques for assimilation. I began to seek out a less substantial form of a role model in others (which I believe everyone does to a certain extent, but rarely quite to this degree.) I drifted from one group to another, searching for a place where I belonged. It was only until later that I discovered a (still exponentially less substantial) role model that would suit me, but the entire experience left a gaping hole in my arsenal of psychological behaviors. I never quite received a set of mannerisms to adopt, so I was forced to rely upon a generic set that could observed in any social situation. That is, I was forced to adopt the social normalities associated with extremely formal interactions. As a result, I am often overwhelmed with a sense of anxiety when I deviate from these normalities, and I have become almost entirely unable to informally identify with another human being. This has made it more difficult for me to make friends, it has forced within me a compulsion to analyze social situations rather than to participate, it has made me become generally anxious in group settings (at least groups whose opinion I value), and most importantly, it has nurtured in me a tendency of regarding myself as socially inferior to many of my colleagues (which often translates to overall inferiority.) I believe that this can explain some behaviors of young girls, such as why they rely upon social aggression above physical aggression. As mentioned above, mother figures are often less substantial than father figures in terms of a role model. After all, they often have less observably pronounced personalities than father figures, smaller social roles, and girls sometimes develop a sense of female rivalry with their mothers (this is explained more in other studies.) Therefore, girls are often left, to a smaller extent, in the situation in which I was left. They have to find less substantial role models in other places, to fill in the gaps that they create from their primary role models. Where better to find these role models than in other girls? They start groups in order to identify with one another, and ultimately bend the social environment onto a scale which they can then manipulate and control. The theory can be tested and invalidated by studies which measure the relationship girls have with their mothers, and their corresponding places in major groups in their society. (For instance, this theory predicts that a girl who is very close to her mother will likely be unpopular in school. Girls who have frequent arguments with their mother should be observed as higher up on the social scale. Confounding factors may include appearance, sexuality, mental instability, or events. The way in which these factors confound the results are also of interest, and can explain many additional aspects of behavior.) I will hereby refer to the psychological situation that I experienced as the Negation Effect. The negation effect describes what happens in the absence of a role model. A solution to the negation effect is actually very simple. The subject should find a replacement role model, be they alive or dead, or real or imaginary, and observe everything about the role model's personality and mannerisms. The role model does not have to be a single person, but it can be a collection of mannerisms which reflect an entire entity. Often, the application of just one of these mannerisms can produce the immediate change desired in a personality. For instance, by imagining Einstein's posture and how he walked, one may be adopt a more confident personality. After all, posture has a huge psychological effect in public, and it can affect how you think and behave. By practicing posture on your own and in public, the person should begin to feel immediate changes in thinking. Social anxiety should decrease, and the personal develop a foundation for interpreting the world and ultimately assimilating into his own ideals.