Self-Defense Mechanisms

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some coffee on another’s jacket, he or she will try to wipe it up or buy a new jacket as compensation.

Identification

Frustrating feelings can be resolved by subconsciously identifying with persons or situations that are considered to be similar or relevant. If you are not the only one need to work during Christmas holiday, you may feel much better. Another example, when you know someone has overcome your current situation before, you will trust his or her advice spontaneously.

Intellectualization

Intellectualization is another positive way to cope with failures apart from sublimation. It is to keep distance from frustrating emotions by focusing on the intellectual components of the situation. For example, when a woman knows she has high potential of suffering from breast cancer based on the family history, she tries to learn all the things about this disease. She may not feel feared when she has to confront the disease one day.

Conclusion:

When people coping with frustration, it sounds that ego needs will be in top priority. It would be dangerous when one not handled it properly. Some tragedies are caused by using the self-defense mechanisms in a radical way. A recent case was that a 77 years old man quarreled with her wife against a money issue. The old man could not withstood the blame from his wife, so he used the aggressive mechanism to terminate the frustration by attacking his wife with a hammer. His wife died and he was arrested finally. Another case in Britain, a father could not afford buying a computer for his daughter and blamed himself for hindering her study. The father adopted the withdrawal mechanism that he committed suicide to get away from the failure.

It is a sad truth that people are willing to sacrifice other needs to protect their ego needs. Even if you are holier-than-thou, you must have coped with similar situations to protect your self-esteem. For instance, it is the first day for you to work at a new company, unfortunately you find that you forget to bring your wallet. Although you feel very hungry, you will not ask your colleague to lend you money. In this case, you sacrifice your physiological needs to ego needs through suppression mechanism. Another common phenomenon is that when one reached the ages suitable for getting married but still being single, he or she will avoid attending family gathering especially during Chinese New Year. Through withdrawal mechanism, the person sacrifice social needs to fulfill ego needs. One more example, a man takes MTR during the busy hours in the morning and the train carriage is already overcrowded. Though the man cannot get into the carriage at first, he still tries his best to squeeze into it. This illustrated how the man sacrifice the safety needs to attain his ego needs.

The self-defense mechanisms with all the examples above well demonstrated that people do not seek to satisfy lower-level needs before higher-level needs come out as stated in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which proved that sometimes psychological needs become much more important.

In advertising, the self-defense mechanisms concept are not used widely. When applied, most properly are in humorous or satirical ways. Below are some examples:

 Autism: The beer can bring you the fantasy.

 Rationalization and Compensation: It is normal to have extramarital relations which can perfect your sex lives.

 Rationalization: Drugs are only beer that are no harm to you.

However, the self-defense mechanisms are much more suitable to be used in customer service or public relations. Complaints has become a common culture in Hong Kong. One of the main reasons is most think that they deserve a better product or service that they have paid for. It all boils down to ego needs. So a good understanding in human behavior can let marketers know what causes the complaints and what needs the customers want to fulfill. That facilitates their handling of customers’ frustrations and even minimizes or avoid such being happened.

References:

1. Consumer Behavior (11th edition) – Schiffman and Wisenblit, Pearson (P.87-88, P.90-92)

2. The Essential Guide to Defense Mechanisms - Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201110/the-essential-guide-defense-mechanisms

3. New World Encyclopedia – Defense Mechanism

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Defense_mechanism

4. AllPsych – Freud’s Ego Defense Mechanisms

http://allpsych.com/psychology101/defenses

5. News: HKET.com http://topick.hket.com/article/1011313

6. News: Moon-soft.com http://www.moon-soft.com/program/bbs/readelite348747.htm