Think about this when you see someone here calling another a pedophile or rapist apologist or [View all]

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Misogynist

Psychological projection



Psychological projection was conceptualized by Sigmund Freud in the 1890s as a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects his or her own unacceptable attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world.[1] For example, a person who is rude may accuse other people of being rude.

Although rooted in early developmental stages,[2] and classed by Vaillant as an immature defence,[3] the projection of one's negative qualities onto others on a small scale is nevertheless a common process in everyday life.[4]
Projection was conceptualised by Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess,[5] and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud. Freud considered that in projection thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one's own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.[6] What the ego repudiates is split off and placed in another.[7]

Freud would later come to believe that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on and exaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person.[8] (The related defence of projective identification differs from projection in that there the other person is expected to become identified with the impulse or desire projected outside,[9] so that the self maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.[10])

Melanie Klein saw the projection of good parts of the self as leading potentially to over-idealisation of the object.[11] Equally, it may be one's conscience that is projected, in an attempt to escape its control: a more benign version of this allows one to come to terms with outside authority.[12]