What is the psychology behind not wanting to perform a task after someone tells you to do it, even if you were going to do it anyways?
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The closest actual term is “reactance”. It is when someone becomes non-compliant due to a sense of freedom being restricted
What you are refering to is called Pathological Demand Avoidance. It is something new and still not fully understood but appears to be associated with autism.
I am autistic and suffer with it. It is frustrating and I don’t know how it works or how to overcome it.
But what I do know is that many times I’ll be asked to do something and a little switch inside my brain just switches to “no, I don’t think I will”.
Even if it’s something I really want to do, I don’t do it.
Pathological demand avoidance is anxiety/performance based. I think the more appropriate term would be counter-will. As far as I remember, it’s hypothesized that going against what you’re being asked helps to better define you as an individual while you’re in early developmental stages.
It’s called oppositional defiance. If you have it for a disproportionate amount of things it can be an actual condition called ODD
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/oppositional-defiant-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20375831
Oppositional defiant disorder.
Is it more like “F you, don’t tell me what to do” or is it something else completely, like “Since I was told to do it, I am NOT going to do it”?
Read the book Drive. It talks about what motivates people and dives into this exact topic. Very good book and very insightful
It’s annoying. It’s really not that deep. Not every social/psychological phenomenon has some complex explanation
Not a psychology terms, but for me it feels like loss of control or maybe loss of personal agency.
Maybe anti-authoritarianism or executive dysfunction?
You took my initiative and independence away. I was going to do the thing because I wanted to. You would have seen me do the thing driven by my own motivation. Now if you see me do the thing, you’ll assume it’s because you told me to do it, and you’ll think that I won’t do things unless you ask me to do them. And I’ll spiral into the thought process that you view me as beneath you, like I’m in constant need of your direction.
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