Related Experiment Videos
Defense use and defense understanding in children
1Department of Psychology, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267, USA. phebe.cramer@williams.edu
Journal of Personality
|May 8, 2001
Summary
Children who understand defense mechanisms like denial and projection are less likely to use them. As understanding grows, defense use shifts to less understood mechanisms, indicating developmental progression in psychological defenses.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Psychoanalytic Theory
Background:
- Defense mechanisms are psychological strategies used to cope with reality and maintain self-image.
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of defense mechanism use and comprehension in children is crucial for assessing psychological maturity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between children's utilization of defense mechanisms and their cognitive understanding of these defenses.
- To test the hypothesis that understanding a defense mechanism leads to its decreased use and replacement by less understood defenses.
Main Methods:
- Assessed defense mechanism use in 122 children (ages 7-11) through Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) stories.
- Determined children's understanding of defense mechanisms by their comprehension of stories depicting specific defenses.
Main Results:
- Younger children (7-8 years) exhibited higher use of denial compared to older children (9-11 years).
- Older children demonstrated superior understanding of denial and projection compared to younger children.
- Children who understood denial were less likely to use it; similarly, older children understanding projection used it less.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive understanding of a defense mechanism predicts its reduced usage in children.
- This suggests a developmental shift where understood defenses are replaced by those not yet comprehended.
- Findings support a model of defense mechanism development linked to cognitive maturation and insight.