What are the emotional hot buttons that lead you to overreact?
Is there a certain way that people look at you, talk to you, or act in general that leads you to explode in anger or sadness? You can’t explain why, but you know when this happens you feel your self-control slipping away.
Everyone faces a situation when people take a poke at an emotionally sensitive spot in their psyche. For some individuals, though, those hot buttons are more prevalent and problematic than for others. They see criticism everywhere and, by their overreaction, make things worse.
This quality is called “rejection sensitivity” and involves the constant expectation that other people will not accept you.
Long Island University’s Kevin Meehan and colleagues, in a new study, note that individuals high in this quality feel “sureness that rejection will be the likely outcome of an interpersonal exchange”, and therefore “are often bracing themselves for signs of impending rejection”.
Once someone hits that hot button, “the person may exhibit desperate and often maladaptive responses to either shore up the perceived distance… escape the threatening context… or even retaliate against the perceived aggression”.
Now a vicious cycle is set in motion, and what they fear would happen in fact takes place. The individual avoids relationships altogether while still longing for closeness, an “irresolvable tension”.
People high in rejection sensitivity presented themselves as cold and submissive and reticent toward approaching others, even if that person was acting warmly.
This research shows how your own hot buttons might be causing the very relationship problems you dread.
However, the cycle can be broken if something about the situation changes. Maybe your interaction partner approaches you in a positive way even though you’ve been reticent. The entire dynamic now shifts.
Whether you feel threatened by rejection or by other negative consequences in your relationships, knowing that your perceptions may be distorted by your fears can help you overcome these important obstacles to your fulfilment.
