Although Freud was a smart man, it seems that some of his theories have stigmatized the field of psychology. It is always nice to discover ways in which some of his weaker theories have been re-evaluated and addressed in different terms. According to the ironic process theory, a so-called "Freudian slip" may have nothing to do with Freudian rationale.
Ironic process theory attempts to account for ways in which the mind tries to control itself and explain breakdowns in mental control (Wegner, 1994). According to ironic process theory, a slip of the tongue results in a failed effort to avoid saying something due to limited mental resources. In other words, when the brain is busy and actively trying not to say something, it mistakenly says exactly what it hoped to avoid.
One night, a group of friends were playing a drinking game called 'Tourettes.' The premise of the game goes as follows: a dealer holds a deck of cards and all the players sit in a circle. The dealer 'challenges' each player in clockwise order by producing a card and the two players race to say the first word that comes to mind associated with the first letter of the card value (i.e., if a queen is drawn, an answer could be 'quick'; if a three is drawn, the answer could be 'tree'). The first player to blurt out an appropriate and original answer is awarded the point. The dealer tries to beat every player in the circle, without losing more than three consecutive challenges. Obviously, the addition of alcohol to the game makes it more challenging and, in my opinion, more entertaining. It was a new game for most of the girls playing and the group was large. Everyone had spent a long day together and each girl was flirting with drunken delirium. One African-American girl was the dealer and was a having a decent winning streak. Excitement was rising as each opponent sought to end her reign as dealer. Then, it happened. A nine was drawn from the deck and both girls produced words beginning with the letter 'n' that had already been said. In a scramble to produce another word, the challenger, Sarah*, blurted out a derogatory term and horror immediately swept across her face.
Was this a case of racism or hateful speech brought about by the effects of alcohol, as many girls assumed, or was there a different explanation that was not considered? Reading about ironic process theory causes me to lean to the latter explanation. Sarah*, from what I know of her, is a very open-minded and accepting person. She has been the target of negative speech directed at an aspect of her life that is very important to her and can empathize with those targeted for their differences. To those who knew her well, her word-choice was very uncharacteristic of her. It seems that, in light of the ironic process theory, Sarah* was simply the victim of an attempt to not say something so negatively charged. Sarah* was mentally busy because she was playing a game with unfamiliar rules and trying to balance alcohol consumption (which impairs functioning) as well. Her brain, in recognizing the inpropriety of a racial slur that satisfied the rules of the game but could also be negatively descriptive of her opponent, set her up to fail. By focusing on what she knew she should not say, but feeling the pressures of a race to answer, she seemingly could think of nothing to say but what was occupying her thoughts.
Unfortunately, no one involved knew of ironic process theory and the issue became a very dramatic sequence of events that hurt multiple people due to amplification and misinterpretation. It seems to me that if everyone had simply looked for another explanation of what happened, Sarah* might have been the recipient of empathy instead of ridicule.
*Name changed to protect her identity.
Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101, 34-52.
3 years ago
1 comment:
I do have been the victim of the ironic processing theory, as I know you are super aware Caitlyn ;).
My little story of mortification goes like this: I'm sitting in Health Psychology and incredibly cognitively busy with writing notes down because the professor decided to switch up the lecture style to make it more interesting. The way she accomplished this switch was to change her lecture format from PowerPoint to discussion based lecture.
In the discussion we were trying to come up with examples of behaviors that individuals engage in to directly alter the negative health behaviors that they currently adopt. A student in the class mentioned alcoholics who, as part of their treatment, take pills that make them vomit if they imbibe alcohol.
Well, at this point I'm still trying to write down notes from the past five minutes of discussion and am really only half paying attention to what is currently happening in the class discussion at this point. Then, another student in the class asks why they would take the pills if they make them sick. I am always aware of participation grades in classes and really like adding my two cents to the conversation so with my hand still writing notes I just casually try to answer the student's question by saying "well, that's the point. If they are alcoholics and they are trying to get better they take the pills so that their bodies will automatically associate drinking with throwing up." I then in my brilliant fashion decided to add "which they should already." At this point the class starts to laugh and I look up from notes not even understanding what they were laughing at. Well, later my friend informed me that the way that I said that made it seem like that I drink so much that I associate alcohol with throwing up. A brilliant job on my part of being too cognitively busy to speak and sticking my big foot in my big mouth.
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