A brief review of displacement behaviours...read all about it!

Displacement behaviours are usually self-directed actions that may appear to have no relevance to the situation in which they occur.


In this blog I focus a lot on hair pulling as an example of such phenomena.  Essentially, I believe people pull out hair in situations that reveal prolonged discomfort, embarrassment or disruption to normal behaviour. The hair pulling emerges non-consciously.

Other behaviours that have been noted as displacement behaviours are as follows:

• yawning when not tired (Krout, 1939)
  
• grooming, cleansing or modifying the attractiveness of the face (Eckman and Friesen, 1972)
  
• wetting the lips when they are not dry
  
• clearing the throat when there is no obstruction or cold
  
• hair smoothing (we see this at football matches when a goal is narrowly missed)
  

Waxer (1977) identified the mouth, torso, hand and eyes as the most common sites and targets for displacement behaviour.

To the list above I would also add these too:

• other modes of hair manipulation
  
• head scratching
  
• chin rubbing
  
• Umming and ahhing in speech (and other speech disturbances)
  
• lip biting
  
• nose picking
  
• scalp picking
  

Psychologists and ethologists have often noted that these behaviours are associated with emotional conflicts and are indicative of discomfort and anxiety.

A further interesting example is social coughing, whereby people will cough in conflict situations.  One theory is that such coughing is an automatic reflex that allows the cougher to keep his ambivalence or aversive feelings at an unconscious level. (Grumet, 1987).  In this respect, social coughing could serve as a reflex distress call or protest during an emotional conflict situation.

One theory that I find fascinating is that displacement behaviours may be a means a way of blocking speech or sound making (Elanan and Friesen, 1969).  In this sense, the behaviour emerges in a conflict situation that can neither be avoided nor met - an intolerable situation that requires the body to find some 'neutral' course.  By not speaking or expressing anything that can be construed as aggressive the person targets safety and/or comfort through behaviour that may appear odd to the outside observer.


By considering the irrelevance or superfluousness of speech or verbal expression to any of the behaviours listed above, maybe it can be shown that speaking and displacement behaviours are mutually incompatible.


One quick experiment:  Tell a member of your family to be quiet or shush them in a forceful manner (for example, on the grounds that you want to hear the news) and see if they yawn or perform a self-directed behaviour.

References:

Eckman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repetoire of nonverbal behavior:

Categories, origins, usage and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98. 

 

Eckman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1972). Hand movements. The Journal of

Communication, 22, 353-374. 

Grumet, G.W. (1987). Psychogenic coughing: A review and case report.

Comprehensive Psychiatry, 28(l), 28-34. 

Krout, M. H. (1939). Understanding human gestures. Scientific Monthly, 48-49,

167-172.

Waxer, P. H. (1977). Non-verbal cues for anxiety: An examination of emotional

leakage. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 86, 306-3 14.