Psychology Words That Don’t Mean What You Think
- Spencer Greenberg and Travis M.
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Short of time? Read the key takeaways.
❓ Everyday psychology terms often diverge from science. Words like "gaslighting", "OCD", and "depression" carry precise clinical meanings that differ sharply from how people casually use them.
🗣️ Knowing both meanings can be helpful. The common usage enables you to converse in casual contexts, while the technical usage allows you to express yourself more precisely and to capture things that the common usage cannot.
🎭 Gaslighting is more specific than lying, misleading someone, or disagreeing with them. In its technical sense, it involves manipulating someone in a way that causes them to doubt their own memories, perceptions, or judgment.
➖ “Negative reinforcement” does not mean punishing bad behavior. “Negative” means removing something, while “reinforcement” means increasing a behavior. So, negative reinforcement occurs when removing something makes a behavior more likely to occur in future.
🧠 Everyday psychological labels can obscure important differences between ordinary traits and clinical disorders. Technically speaking, OCD is not simply neatness, depression is not simply sadness, narcissistic personality disorder is not merely vanity, and antisocial personality disorder does not mean preferring to be alone.
😶 Depression does not necessarily involve feeling sad. Major depression can instead center on a persistent loss of interest or pleasure, accompanied by symptoms such as fatigue, sleep or appetite changes, poor concentration, guilt, or suicidal thoughts.
🩹 Not every deeply upsetting experience is “traumatic” in the technical sense. Definitions of trauma vary and remain contested, but they generally emphasize either exposure to extreme threats or experiences that produce lasting psychological disruption; most people eventually recover even after severely distressing events.
Have you been "gaslit" into false beliefs about psychology terms? Have you been "negatively reinforced" into thinking you know what they mean, when you actually don't? A lot of psychological terms don’t mean what people think they mean (at least, not according to psychologists). And the gap between the usage of these terms and their more precise psychological definitions seems to be growing.
In this article, we compare the technical meanings of some important terms from psychology to the meanings they have in common (non-technical) usage.
Before we do, though, a caveat: there is a sense in which the everyday, non-technical usage of these words is wrong (it doesn’t match the more scientific, precise, or technical usage), but of course, language has always been and always will be in flux. Linguists today tend to be descriptivists rather than prescriptivists, so they typically argue that words mean whatever people widely use them to mean. For instance, if tomorrow everyone decides to start using the word "gaslight" to mean "a flashlight powered by beans," they aren't wrong – it will then mean exactly that. But something important is lost in the process, because the scientific definitions of these words point to valuable ideas.
That’s why we think it’s useful to be aware of both definitions for psychological concepts: The everyday concept helps you understand what the terms mean in popular culture or common parlance, whereas the more technical definition is usually more helpful for helping you carefully and precisely understand the way the world (or the human mind) works.
Up for a challenge?If you want to treat this article as a challenge, you could try writing down your own definition of each of the words (before reading our definitions!) and then checking whether your definition is closer to the common or technical definition we’ve given in each case. The words we cover are: | |
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1: Gaslighting
Everyday usage: “Gaslighting” was the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s “word of the year” in 2022. Here’s the definition they gave at the time, which deliberately attempts to capture the everyday usage of the word, rather than the more technical version: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”
Technical usage: Academics studying gaslighting define it in terms like these (which are much more specific than general usage):
“[A] specific form of abuse where one person manipulates another person, causing them to doubt their own fundamental memories, perceptions, or beliefs” (Source)
“[B]ehavior in which one individual attempts to influence the judgment of a second individual by causing the latter to doubt the validity of his or her own judgment” (Source)
The everyday usage misses a key part of the technical usage: the manipulation involved in gaslighting causes the person being manipulated to doubt their own senses or their ability to reason. It is an especially pernicious form of manipulation because it undermines the sense-making faculties of the person being gaslit.
Note that none of these definitions imply that it's gaslighting when someone merely contradicts your perspective or tells you you're wrong. That's just disagreement!
You might think that because gaslighting is harmful, the opposite of it would be good. But not so! Lightgassing (a term we coined for its opposite, where one person reinforces or validates someone else's false beliefs or misperceptions) is also a significant problem. For example, although chatbots can be very useful when used with care, they have been known to both gaslight and lightgas at different times.
2: Negative reinforcement
Everyday usage: Something bad happens when you do a behavior, so you do it less. For example, by this definition, corporal punishment (e.g., spanking/hitting a naughty child) is considered negative reinforcement.
Technical usage: The everyday usage is close to the opposite of the technical meaning, causing a lot of confusion! To see how, let’s address the two words in the phrase “negative reinforcement” one at a time:
Negative: In scientific circles, the “negative” in “negative reinforcement” doesn’t mean “bad” or “unpleasant”; it means taking something away. It’s the opposite of “positive,” which means giving something.
Reinforcement: An action counts as “reinforcement” if it increases a behavior in the future. It’s the opposite of “punishment”, which decreases a behavior in the future.
So, there are four kinds of acts that can be described with these words:
Given this, where would you put “corporal punishment” on this chart?
According to the technical definition, the correct answer is that it’s a form of positive punishment. Surprising, right?
Why does this matter? Well, it's all part of one of the most successful predictive theories in the history of psychology: operant conditioning. It helps explain many things, from why animal training works (and how to do it more effectively) to some important aspects of why people get addicted to gambling.
3: OCD
Everyday usage: Being a “neat freak” or someone who needs things done in a specific way. People sometimes call themselves “a bit OCD” when describing some way in which they are very particular or detail-focused.
Technical usage: The technical definition of OCD involves two components:
Obsessions: unwanted, intrusive thoughts or images that usually cause distress
Compulsions: repetitive behaviors or rituals, which may be physical or mental, meant to reduce anxiety or prevent a feared outcome
According to the DSM-5 (which contains the guidance that clinicians use for diagnosing), a diagnosis of OCD requires that these symptoms are significantly time-consuming or cause significant distress or impairment, and can’t be attributed to something else (like a substance or another health condition).
Interestingly, OCD sometimes is extremely focused on just a single fear, rather than being a pervasive part of their personality. For instance, in this episode of the Clearer Thinking podcast about OCD, David Adam describes his struggle with the fear of getting HIV (despite not engaging in behaviors that risked exposing him to HIV more than average):
"Let's say I was playing soccer, and I scraped my leg. While I was playing soccer, it was fine, but afterward I'd look down at my leg, which was bloody and shredded, and think, "Well, I did that. Someone else could have done that. Someone else could have fallen over on that exact spot of the astroturf and left behind blood. They could have been HIV positive, and when I fell on that same bit of grass, that blood could have gotten into my system." One of these things, if you were to take it theoretically at every step, is just about plausible. But in reality, most people would never even consider that. It's one of those things that's so unlikely that we dismiss it. But OCD puts a huge gap between zero and very, very, very unlikely."
Before getting treatment, these fears of HIV became all-consuming for him, making it challenging for him to enjoy life.
Intriguingly, OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder), which is considered a completely different disorder than OCD, may be closer to the colloquial usage of the term "OCD". OCPD is a personality disorder involving "rigid perfectionism", where you feel the need to have things done in "just the right" way. If you're interested, you can learn more about OCPD in the Clearer Thinking podcast episode about that topic.
4: Depression
Everyday usage: Feeling sad a lot.
Technical usage: There’s not one single thing called “depression”. The DSM-5 lists a variety of depressive disorders, including:
Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
Major depressive disorder (including major depressive episode)
Persistent depressive disorder
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
Substance/medication-induced depressive disorder
Depressive disorder due to another medical condition
Other specified depressive disorder
Unspecified depressive disorder
When people say “depression”, they’re most likely to mean major depressive disorder, which actually doesn’t have to involve sadness at all. Additionally, feeling sad a lot doesn't imply someone has major depressive disorder (though it can be one sign of it). In fact, the DSM-5 explicitly says that “Careful consideration should be given to the delineation of normal sadness and grief from a major depressive episode.” A major depressive episode is defined as:
“a period lasting at least 2 weeks during which there is either depressed mood or the loss of interest or pleasure in all or nearly all activities for most of the day nearly every day.”
And a diagnosis of major depressive disorder requires the presence of a major depressive episode and at least four of the following:
Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
Observable changes in the speed of physical movement or mental processes nearly every day
Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day
Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day
Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation
It's worth distinguishing depression from sadness because while sadness can be a sign of depression, many people who are sad (e.g., shortly after a significant loss) are not depressed, and many people who are depressed are not especially sad (e.g., some instead experience persistent low mood, fatigue, and loss of pleasure). Thankfully, depression can often be treated successfully.
5: Narcissist
Everyday usage: Someone who is self-centered or very vain.
Technical usage: A personality disorder (NPD) involving a grandiose sense of self-importance and superiority, need for admiration, and reduced empathy. If you’re interested in learning more about narcissistic personality disorder (including tips on how to navigate relationships with someone who has it), consider checking out our deep dive on the topic here, or this podcast episode in which Spencer talks about narcissism with a narcissist.
There's a big difference between having a relationship with someone who's a bit narcissistic, and having one with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder. And understanding the differences can help you in such relationships (whether you decide to remain in them, or not).
6: Antisocial
Everyday usage: A desire to avoid being around other people. Usually used to describe a temporary state (e.g., “I’m feeling antisocial tonight”), rather than a persistent trait.
Technical usage: In psychology, the word ‘antisocial’ primarily occurs in the context of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), which you might know by its other, more popular names: “psychopathy,” “sociopathy,” or “dyssocial personality disorder.” This disorder is defined (in the DSM-5, again) in terms of a pervasive disregard for or violation of the rights of others, typically involving deceit, manipulativeness, aggression, and a lack of empathy/remorse, for over three years, since the age of 15 (with evidence from before 15 also). If you’re interested in learning more about antisocial personality disorder, consider checking out our deep dive on the topic, here.
Despite being a popular theme in thrillers and horror films, antisocial personality disorder rarely looks like those movie tropes. Understanding how it actually operates can be useful as you're likely to meet one or more people with antisocial personality disorder in your lifetime (and chances are, you know at least one already).
7: Trauma
Everyday usage: A very upsetting experience.
Technical usage: The DSM-5 doesn’t explicitly offer a definition of “trauma” but it does give a criterion for what counts as the kind of traumatic event that can precipitate PTSD: “Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence.”
Interestingly, this criterion has received criticism for leaving out things like psychological abuse and other threatening events like stalking and bullying. The American Psychological Association offers a broader definition:
“[Trauma is] any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning. Traumatic events [...] often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place.”
An important aspect of trauma that is often overlooked: almost all the events we experience that are upsetting are not traumatic in the technical sense. Furthermore, the events that are traumatic vary from person to person and situation to situation. While just about anyone would be horrified to be in school when a school shooting occurs, some people will experience the event as traumatic, whereas others will go through a normal recovery period without any long-lasting effects. In fact, full recovery is the typical response humans have after disturbing events.
Why care about these words?
One of the great benefits of technical language is that it allows you to express yourself more precisely and in more detail. Of course, there can be a time for going with the flow of culture and using words in accordance with their common usage, especially when trying to avoid confusing the person you're talking to (though we prefer to avoid doing so in cases where the common usage is belittling or unkind).
But there’s also an important role for more technically precise terminology as well. In the cases above, we believe the technical versions of these words are worth knowing about and understanding, particularly where they might help you to identify specific patterns of abuse or specific mental health issues in yourself or others that the common usage can’t capture.
