Exaggeration

Exaggeration is a representation of something in an excessive manner. The exaggerator has been a familiar figure in Western culture since at least Aristotle's discussion of the alazon: 'the boaster is regarded as one who pretends to have distinguished qualities which he possesses either not at all or to a lesser degree than he pretends...exaggerating'.^[1]

Words or expressions associated with exaggeration include:

• catastrophization
• hyperbole
• laying it on thick
• magnification
• maximization
• overreaction
• overstating
• stretching the truth

Everyday and psycho-pathological contexts

Contexts of exaggeration include:

Manipulation

The boasting and bragging by arrogant or manipulative people has been sent up on stage since the first appearance of the alazon - 'a stock character in Greek comedy'.^[2] Inflated praise in the form of flattery and puffery has a similarly lengthy history.^[3]

Amplifying achievements, obstacles and problems to seek attention is an everyday occurrence, as 'in exaggerating what one feels by magnifying the emotional expression: this is the ploy used by the six-year-old who dramatically twists her face into a pathetic frown, lips quivering, as she runs to complain to her mother about being teased'.^[4]

Exaggerating is also a type of deception,^[5] as well as a means of malingering - magnifying small injuries or discomforts as an excuse to avoid responsibilities.^[6]

Cognitive distortions

Cognitive behavioral therapy views magnification (as opposed to minimization) as unconscious, unrealistic mental processing or cognitive distortion, which can take the form of probability overestimation or of catastrophizing. 'Whereas probability overestimation refers to exaggerating the "likelihood" of an event, catastrophizing refers to exaggerating the "importance" of the event'.^[7] Closely related 'is overgeneralizing. You take a single negative event and see it as a never-ending pattern of defeat'.^[8]

Another form of cognitive exaggeration is inflation of the difficulty of achieving a goal after attaining it, possibly to improve self-esteem.^[9]

In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: 'these thoughts might be called emotional amplifiers because, as they go around and around, they become more intense....Here are some typical all-or-nothing thoughts:

• My efforts are either a success or they are an abject failure
• I am/other people are either all good or all bad
• if you're not with us, you're against us'.^[10]

Pathology

Psychoanalysis considered that 'if neurotic exaggerations - namely, attitudes in which a relatively harmless thing is emotionally overvalued - are analyzed, the results demonstrate that they are derivatives of something that has been repressed...displacement'.^[11] Thus for example a conflict over ambivalence may be resolved 'by this means. The subject's hatred of a person whom he loves is kept down by an exaggerated amount of tenderness for him'.^[12]

The grandiose sense of self-importance observed in narcissists^[13] also uses exaggeration to thwart any recognition of fallibility, 'any step towards help....The grandiose side of the self always steps in at such a moment and exaggerates the truth, saying something like, "You see? Everything you've done is absolutely hopeless'.^[14]

"Self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion" can be observed in those with histrionic personality disorder^[13] and other Cluster B personality disorders; while "catastrophizing" is associated with depressive, neurotic or paranoid behavior – focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.^[15][16]

Exaggeration may also be observed in abusers or manipulators to amplify or fabricate faults of the victim as a component of victim blaming.

Humour

'Some theoreticians of the comic consider exaggeration to be a universal comic device'.^[17] It may take different forms in different genres, but all rely on the fact that 'the easiest way to make things laughable is to exaggerate to the point of absurdity their salient traits'.^[18]

Caricature

Main article: Caricature

A caricature can refer to a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness: 'disproportionately increasing and emphasizing the defects of the features'.^[19] In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.^[20]

Slapstick

Main article: Slapstick

Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence and activities which exceed the boundaries of common sense.^{[citation needed]} These exaggerated depictions are often found in children's cartoons, and light film comedies aimed at younger audiences.

Paradoxical laughter

Main article: Paradoxical laughter

Paradoxical laughter is an exaggerated expression of humor which is unwarranted by external events. It may be uncontrollable laughter which may be recognised as inappropriate by the person involved. Freud considered 'the compulsive laughter which so often occurs on mournful occasions'^[21] the by-product of ambivalence.

Miles Gloriosus

Main article: Miles Gloriosus

The boastful soldier or Miles Gloriosus has for thousands of years formed part of the Western stage. 'The original miles gloriosus in Plautus is a son of Jove and Venus who has killed an elephant with his fist and seven thousand men in one day's fighting. In other words, he is trying to put on a good show: the exuberance of his boasting helps to put the play over'.^[22]

Overacting

Main article: Overacting

Overacting is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be required for the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations or to stress the evil characteristics of a villain. Since the perception of acting quality differs between people the extent of overacting can be subjective.

Tragedy

Though the boaster (alazon) is primarily a comic figure, 'the alazon may be one aspect of the tragic hero as well: the touch of miles gloriosus in Tamburlaine, even in Othello, is unmistakable, as is the touch of the obsessed philosopher in Faustus and Hamlet'.^[23]

Expressionism

Main article: Expressionism

'"Expressionist art"...attempted to intensify the expression of feeling and attitude by exaggeration'.^[24] In its wake, even the 'new and hard realism...kept much of the distortion and exaggeration which had been one of the chief devices of earlier Expressionism'.^[25]

Metaphors

• "Making a mountain out of a molehill"
• "Blow out of proportion" or "Blow out of all proportion"
• "The sky is falling in"
• "World War III has broken out"

Literary analogues

• In the BookWorld, warnings are issued about ' Poetry Island...any visit longer than a few hours will have an exaggerating effect on the senses. Upbeat poems will tend to have you laughing uncontrollably, while sombre poems will have you questioning your own worth in a most hideously self-obsessed manner'.^[26]
• The Monty Python Dirty Fork sketch demonstrates an absurd level of catastrophization where restaurant staff commit suicide and murder each other because of a customer complaint of a dirty fork.

See also

• Fear mongering
• Henny Penny
• Hypercriticism
• Hypervigilance
• Negativity effect
• Positivity effect
• Spin
• Superiority complex

References

1. ^ Aristotle, Ethics (Penguin 1976) p. 165
2. ^ H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature (London 1966)p. 49
3. ^ ""puff piece." Answers.com". The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992. http://www.answers.com/topic/puff-piece. Retrieved 2006-07-22. 
4. ^ Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (London 1996) p. 113
5. ^ Guerrero, L., Anderson, P., Afifi, W. (2007). Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
6. ^ R. Rogers Clinical Assessment of Malingering and Deception 3rd Edition, Guilford, 2008. ISBN 1-59385-699-7
7. ^ M. M. Antony/P. J. Norton, The Anti-Anxiety Workbook (2008) p. 83
8. ^ Paul Gilbert, Overcoming Depression (London 1999) p. 286
9. ^ Beth Azar All puffed up Monitor on Psychology June 2007, Vol 38, No. 6
10. ^ Gilbert, p. 63 and p. 98
11. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1994) p. 149
12. ^ Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 317
13. ^ ^{a b} Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth edition Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) American Psychiatric Association (2000)
14. ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 1993) p. 71
15. ^ John M.Grohol; PsyD. "What is Catastrophizing? – Psych Central". http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/what-is-catastrophizing/. Retrieved 1 March 2010. 
16. ^ http://www.outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Catastrophizing.html
17. ^ Emil Draitser, Techniques of Satire (1994) p. 135
18. ^ M. Eastman/W. Fry, Enjoyment of Laughter (2008) p. 156
19. ^ Filippo Baldinucci, quoted in Harold Osborne ed., The Oxford Companion to Art (Oxford 1992) p. 204
20. ^ Caricature in literature
21. ^ Sigmund Freud, Case Studies II (PFL 9) p. 74
22. ^ Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton 1973) p. 165
23. ^ Frye, p. 39
24. ^ Harold Bloom, Thomas Hardy (2010) p. 93
25. ^ Harold Osborne ed., The Oxford Companion to Art (Oxford 1992) p. 397
26. ^ Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing (London 2011) p. 249

Further reading

Books

• Duttmann, AG; Phillips, J Philosophy of Exaggeration (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy) (2007)

Academic papers

• Clayer, JR; Bookless, C; Ross, MW Neurosis and conscious symptom exaggeration: Its differentiation by the illness behaviour questionnaire Journal of Psychosomatic Research Volume 28, Issue 3, 1984, Pages 237-241
• Demaree, HA; Schmeichel, BJ; Robinson, JL; Everhart, D. Erik Behavioural, affective, and physiological effects of negative and positive emotional exaggeration. Cognition and Emotion, Volume 18, Number 8, 2004, 1079-1097(19)
• Masterson, J; Dunworth, R; Williams, N Extreme illness exaggeration in pediatric patients: A variant of Munchausen's by Proxy?. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Vol 58(2), Apr 1988, 188-195.
• McNicholas, F Slonims, V & Cass H Exaggeration of Symptoms or Psychiatric Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy? Child and Adolescent Mental Health 2003 Volume 5 Issue 2, Pages 69 – 75
• Mittenberg, W; Patton, C; Canyock, EM; Condit, DC Base rates of malingering and symptom exaggeration. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. Vol 24(8), Dec 2002, 1094-1102.
• Mueller, J Simplicity and spook: Terrorism and the dynamics of threat exaggeration International Studies Perspectives, 2005
• Pieper, WJ Exaggeration, puffery, inferential beliefs and deception in advertising - 1976 - University of South Carolina.
• Sperling, OE Exaggeration as a Defense. Psychoanal Q., 32:553-548. (1963).

External links

• Magnification and Minimization
• Cognitive Distortion #6: Magnification and Minimization