Benjamin D. Rosenberg

Dominican University of California · Psychology

Psychological reactance theory posits that when people are faced with threats to, or elimination of, behavioral freedom, they experience an aversive motivational state (i.e., psychological reactance). Recent research indicates that people’s state of mind affects reactance arousal processes. We hypothesized that being in a state of threatening uncer...

High-controlling (HC) language is explicit, clear, and efficient; however, it can be perceived as threatening, thus risking rejection. The benefits and drawbacks of using HC language presents a dilemma for message designers. Psychological reactance researchers have begun to examine strategies designed to utilize the virtues of HC language while mit...

Persuasive appeals that are direct and explicit are easier to understand than appeals that are indirect and implicit (Bessarabova et al. Human Communication Research, 39, 339–364, 2013; Gardner and Leshner Health Communication, 31, 738–751, 2016; Miller et al. Human Communication Research, 33, 219–240, 2007). Unfortunately, as psychological reactan...

Psychological reactance theory (PRT) posits that threats to people’s freedom elicit reactance, an aversive motivational state that triggers freedom restoration. The current chapter utilizes PRT as a vehicle for understanding phenomena related to religious beliefs and behavior. Our focus here is on outlining the ways in which social, political, or e...

Psychological reactance theory (PRT; Brehm, 1966) posits that when something threatens or eliminates people’s freedom of behavior, they experience psychological reactance, a motivational state that drives freedom restoration. Complementing recent, discipline-specific reviews (e.g., Quick, Shen, & Dillard, 2013; Steindl, Jonas, Sittenthaler, Traut-M...

Interventions that increase help‐seeking among people with depression have the potential to save lives. Several efforts have been impressively successful; however, research has also chronicled inconsistent results, with some endeavors indicating boomerang effects. The goal of the current analysis is to synthesize select findings from cognitive theo...

Scholars across multiple domains have identified the presence of inconsistency-arousing information in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements and have suggested that these appeals, which highlight differences between people's actual and desired lives, may create psychological disequilibrium. However, experimental assessment of the dist...

The present study provides an example of the integrated data analysis technique of creating and interpreting merged profiles. By using this approach to merging data sources, we gained unique insight into goal disruption theory (GDT). Qualitative data suggest that military personnel harbor a wide range of desired end-states. Quantitative data suppor...