Whenever Olivia feels badly about an exam performance she visits the professor and breaks down into tears. As the professor attempts to console her, she is reminded of her childhood when her mother would comfort her whenever she was upset. Sigmund Freud would say that Olivia is using ________ to alleviate her anxieties about her academic abilities.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Olivia is exhibiting regression, which involves reverting to an earlier stage of development as a way to cope with anxiety or stress. In this case, Olivia is reverting to her childhood behavior of seeking comfort from her mother. Displacement involves redirecting emotions from a potentially harmful target to a less threatening one, sublimation involves channeling socially unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable behavior, and projection involves attributing one's own unacceptable impulses or feelings to others. None of these concepts seem to be applicable to Olivia's situation.

Whenever Olivia Feels Badly About an Exam Performance She Visits