Rethinking Resistance – A New Interdisciplinary Model for Psychological Reactance

Abstract: Escalating societal crises such as climate change, public health emergencies, and migration intensify conflicts between regulatory governance and individual autonomy. In these contexts, resistance frequently emerges as psychological reactance, yet dominant models conceptualize reactance primarily as a static blend of anger and negative cognition. This paper introduces the Psychological Reactance Process Model (PRPM), which reconceptualizes reactance as a dynamic, emotion-driven communicative process. Integrating Psychological Reactance Theory with Cognitive Appraisal Theory, the PRPM explains how appraisals of freedom limitation, responsibility, and self-efficacy interact with emotional mobilization to produce distinct resistance pathways, including confrontation, noncompliance, and withdrawal. Drawing on experimental evidence (N = 546), we show that appraisal-based reactance dimensions reliably predict both escalation-oriented and avoidance-oriented conflict behaviors. By framing reactance as communicative agency rather than persuasion failure, the PRPM advances conflict management research by clarifying how autonomy threats shape conflict trajectories, legitimacy disputes, and disengagement in polarized public discourse.

Keywords: Psychological reactance; conflict escalation; resistance and withdrawal; communicative agency; autonomy and legitimacy; emotion in conflict; public and political conflict; appraisal processes