AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -According to the DSM-IV, rationalization occurs “when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for their own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self serving but incorrect explanations".

Detailed explanation-2: -Rationalization is a defense mechanism in which people justify difficult or unacceptable feelings with seemingly logical reasons and explanations. For example, a student who is rejected from her dream college may explain that she’s happy to be attending a school that’s less competitive and more welcoming.

Detailed explanation-3: -Rationalization is a disavowal defense mechanism which permits an individual to deal with emotional conflicts, or internal or external stressors, by devising reassuring or self-serving but incorrect explanations for his or her own or others’ thoughts, actions, or feelings, which cover up other motives (Perry 1990).

Detailed explanation-4: -Freudian defense mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and denial.