Psychological terms we use wrong

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Make sure you don't confuse concepts that mean completely different things.

1. Empathy, sympathy and empathy

Because of the similar sound, "empathy" is often confused with "sympathy", and those who know English may equate this word with "empathy" (empathy and sympathy). Both approaches are wrong. Empathy is the ability to understand another person's experiences without necessarily being pleasant. And empathy is the next step after empathy, saying that you not only appreciated someone's emotions, but were also able to try them on yourself.

2. Shame and guilt

Both unpleasant feelings arise in response to a mistake. But shame is characteristic of a person who has committed an offense in front of witnesses, and is associated with public condemnation. It manifests itself in the form of a negative assessment of one's own personality.

Guilt arises regardless of whether someone has seen the error. These are remorse associated with a negative assessment of their actions.

3. Displacement and displacement

It is easy to confuse the two defense mechanisms of the psyche, but this should not be done. Repression, or suppression, is the elimination of something unpleasant from consciousness. At the everyday level, it manifests itself as attempts to distract, forget, although in general the process is somewhat more complicated.

Displacement consists in reorienting the emotion from the object that caused it to another, because its true direction needs to be hidden for some reason. For example, a person is angry with a boss but yells at family members.

4. Negative reinforcement and punishment

It seems to many that these are practically synonymous concepts, however, the terms are based on directly opposite strategies. Punishment involves limiting pleasant incentives. For example, a child who has not cleaned the room is not allowed to walk. Moreover, the result of punishment is unpredictable: it is not known whether it will work or not.

Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, accompanies the removal of an unpleasant or irritating factor and motivates a person to do the same when similar conditions arise. For example, the child was not allowed to walk, and he burst into tears. The parent felt sorry for him, and he canceled the punishment. With this, he gave the offspring negative reinforcement, and in the future the child will repeatedly use crying to achieve his goals.

5. Depression and discouragement

It is high time to prohibit mentioning depression in vain: there is no need to call bad mood and fatigue that way. It is a serious illness that can be caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, endocrine changes, brain damage, severe traumatic events, and so on.

A person with depression needs medical attention. Instead, he often receives comments like “I don’t have time to get depressed, I have a lot to do” and “go somewhere, get loose”. And the reasons for this are the use of the name of the disease with and without.

6. Sociopathy and social phobia

A sociophobe is afraid of the company of other people, he is afraid of conversations with strangers, mass events. But at the same time, he does not pose a danger to others.

The sociopath is not afraid of society, he despises it and shows this with all his actions. He does not respect the rules and norms of morality. Communicating with him is at least uncomfortable (he will say unpleasant things to you without frowning), at the most dangerous: a sociopath will easily take advantage of you to achieve his goals.

7. Serial murder and overkill

The serial killer commits several crimes, but they are spread out in time. The new incident is preceded by a "cooling period", when the killer experiences emotional decline, since he did not receive the expected satisfaction from his actions.

Mass murder is the murder of a large number of people in one or more episodes, but practically at the same time.

8. Asociality and antisociality

An asocial person is indifferent to society, he does not want to interact with its members and goes through life alone. The antisocial individual knows the laws of society well and seeks to oppose them. Among the common signs of antisocial behavior are lies, tendency to fight and robbery, arson, vandalism.

9. Depressive-manic syndrome

Since 1993, this disease is more correctly called bipolar disorder. However, the former name still serves her in disservice. Ignorant people think of a person with bipolar disorder as a kind of depressive maniac, although in reality the manic disorder has nothing to do with serial killers. Periods of depression in this state alternate with an elevated, cheerful mood, when a person is ready to move mountains, which is called mania.

10. Prostration and frustration

Prostration is a state of extreme fatigue, exhaustion, exhaustion of physical and mental strength. The reasons for this can be a serious illness, overwork, starvation. Frustration - anxiety and sadness because you didn't get what you wanted, especially if you were sure of success.

11. Procrastination and laziness

Both of these states are similar in that a person postpones everything for later, does not want to do anything right now. Only procrastination is accompanied by a feeling of anxiety due to unfulfilled obligations, and the lazy person does not really suffer from remorse.

12. Psychosis and neurosis

In everyday life, these concepts are called strong excitement, an agitated state, and in both cases this is not true. Psychosis is a disorder of perception of the real world with painful self-comprehension, delirium, hallucinations and reactions that contradict the situation. Neurosis is a collective name for neurotic disorders, which are characterized by obsessive or hysterical manifestations, decreased performance.

13. Schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder

These terms are not often confused by ordinary people; problems may arise for those who like to dig deeper. The name "schizophrenia" comes from the Greek words "split the mind", but this does not mean that the patient has a split personality. In fact, the behavior and thoughts of a schizophrenic do not fit into the environment around him, that is, his personality is split with reality, and not with itself.