<p>People certainly express a dislike for drama for different reasons, and I'm going to hazard explaining a few of them that I think are potentially useful:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Expressing an opinion on 'drama', especially on social media, is
usually a response to a <a href="http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/medicine/reflective/2.xml" rel="nofollow noreferrer">critical incident</a>. Just as one
generally does not go around complaining about dishonest auto
mechanics (or car salesmen, or insurance salesmen, or crazy
psychologists...) just to make conversation, one hopefully does not
go around complaining about 'drama' unless one is responding to an
event or set of events in-particular. </p>

<p>What's different about interpersonal conflict is that, unless one is
a shut-in, there are limitless opportunities to experience it, and
thus there's always a potential cue handy if one wishes to opine.
And oh, how some people love to opine!</p>

<p>This critical incident hypothesis, if you will, is most likely to
explain things like updating a profile or making a particular
comment, etc. It isn't a sufficient explanation for a pattern of
behavior, however - if it seems to be their favorite topic of
discussion, it's probably not a simple critical incident.</p></li>
<li><p>If it's a person's favorite complaint, or perhaps with a
dating-style site if it appears as a litmus test or chief complaint,
it could be due to an on-going or past trauma. In other words,
someone has experienced interpersonal conflict they find so
unreasonable, and so deeply hurtful, that it's their most obvious
non-negotiable list item when they go to think about what they don't
want.</p></li>
<li><p>The reason the op eludes to is, in my favorite way to explain it, <a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/31953/the-louder-he-talked-of-his-honor-the-faster-we-counted-our-spoons">the louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted the spoons</a>. This is something we may refer to as an evaluation
heuristic: when people proclaim how much they are X, the most likely
they are not-X; or the louder they state they hate Y, the more
likely they are to exhibit the traits of Y.</p>

<p>In general, this can be an invaluably useful heuristic. As a woman
if you encounter a man who often favors expressing how much he hates
wife-beaters, for instance, you would likely do best to stay the
hell away from him (as personal anecdote, one of the most vile human
beings I've ever met often expressed his violent disgust for
domestic violence); child-molesters are often witnessed as offering,
unprompted, opinions about treating children well, etc. These sorts
of things are red flags.</p>

<p>And what is a red flag, really? It's something out of the ordinary,
not generally experienced, that we perceive as being "statistically
correlated" with the experience of something bad. Sometimes these
gut feelings are good, sometimes they are mistaken, and they can
often be easily manipulated one way or the other - but one is
generally wise to never simply ignore such intuitions.</p>

<p>Now, to be clear, this is only a heuristic - by definition it can be
wrong, and it doesn't really 'explain' the behavior itself. It's
just a good aid in decision-making.</p>

<p>So while this is often true and valid, I do not offer this as a real
explanation for the behavior. For that I simply continue to...</p></li>
<li><p>Selective attentiveness. If a person is dishonest, they surely
know the value of honesty - it gives people the benefit of doubts,
and "confidence" is the resource they most require to be successful
in their manipulations. As such, they are very much aware of honesty
and dishonesty, and actively try to cultivate such opinions. If
someone seems over-eager to gain your trust, there aren't many ways
for that to end well - maybe trying to get you to buy a $20 bottle
of fruit juice, at best.</p>

<p>However, as a criteria this one doesn't have total discriminatory
power - people commonly victimized (the ill and disabled, for
instance, people of low socio-economic class, etc), with PTSD, and
certain personalities might be more focused on honesty and
dishonesty. This is also made harder by context - if there is fear
of being disbelieved or a lack of personal confidence in the self,
this can be thrown way off and a person can be seen as dishonest
falsely. Sadly, this same effect causes con-men to be believed
because they learn to extort this heuristic and direct attention
where they want it.</p></li>
<li><p>It's code for something else. What does "drama" even mean? As you
point out, who the heck expresses a preference for interpersonal
conflict and irrational attention seeking?</p>

<p>To them, it may have a specific meaning in their mind: a certain set
of related behaviors, probably mimicking soap-opera like "blow
simple, common experiences out of proportion".</p>

<p>Sometimes, I totally agree - it's important to have perspective, and
if people always have a rain cloud over their head it can be
fatiguing to be around them. However, all too often I've found this
to be a flag for people who express no particular concern, empathy,
or understanding of other people - they just don't care and don't
want to be bothered with "other people's problems". </p>

<p>This all too often reflects a character of selfishness and unconcern
with others feelings, emotions, and experiences; someone might be
reaching out for a little understanding, or a kind word, or asking
for help, or even suffering from a severe mental or physical
illness, or just venting. Casually dismissing such things as "drama"
is...well, a red flag for me. But again, that's just a heuristic
I've found to be useful.</p></li>
<li><p>Critical mass, or "everyone else says it". I'm fun-loving, too!
From a user-experience view (wearing a different hat), requiring
that someone say 'something' without guidance or proper
understanding of what someone should or should not say tends to get
people to just put what they think is appropriate based upon what
other people say or what you tell them they should put.</p>

<p>Depending on where you are, you can find a whole lot of people
saying "no drama". I don't know if they even know what it means, any
more than they know whether or not they are fun-loving or positive
or outgoing or upbeat.</p></li>
<li><p>Boorishness. Some people just don't make good conversation, and
maybe they just like to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tilt at windmills</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>They are middle-school or high-school aged girls. As a father of
two of said human beings, it appears to be in the genetic or
cultural makeup or realities of modern society that generate actual,
imagined, or commentary on, drama.</p></li>
</ol>

<p><strong>TLDR;</strong></p>

<p>They might just be, or are in close-contact with, high-school girls. For deeper thinking, see above.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-10-17T17:13:26.907Z
2013-10-17T17:13:26.907Z
2017-04-13T12:38:11.667Z
BrianH
<p>To build on @ChuckSherrington's answer, I agree that what you're hypothesizing is essentially an application of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_formation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">reaction formation</a> theory. I don't know if your particular applications have been studied, but the reaction formation process in general has been researched and supported <sup>(<a href="http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Baumeister, Dale, &amp; Sommer, 1998</a>)</sup>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Self-deception</a> is one of many factors that distinguishes <a href="http://www.psych2.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~oschult/humanlab/research/differences.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">implicit from explicit motivation</a> (see also <sup><a href="http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free_download/mcclelland_89_355.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">McClelland, Koestner, &amp; Weinberger, 1989</a>; Emmons &amp; McAdams, 1991)</sup>. Reaction formation seems a likely marker of self-deception in cases where implicit and explicit motives conflict...especially if the reaction formation involves complaining! Concordance among various kinds of motives (implicit, explicit, goals, values, strivings, etc.) is important for well-being <sup>(e.g., <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289_Effects_of_achievement_goal_striving_on_well-being_the_moderating_role_of_the_explicit_achievement_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Job, Langens, &amp; Brandstätter, 2009</a>)</sup>, so expressing negative attitudes like in your examples might be a sign of negative affect elevated by internal conflict.</p>

<p>However, I could easily see your hypothesis being falsified for good reasons. While it's true that people's personalities affect their choices of situations to which they expose themselves <sup>(e.g., Beck &amp; Clark, 2009)</sup>, many of the situations people find themselves in are certainly not chosen. Situations can thus operate independently of preexisting personality characteristics in affecting attitudes <sup>(e.g., <a href="http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample_ch04.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">McShane, 2009</a>;</sup> see also the first figure in <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/5733/4086">this answer</a> depicting influences of both personality and external factors on attitudes).</p>

<p>More concretely speaking, it seems likely that many people who "hate drama" feel this way because they can't avoid it, regardless of whether they're actually trying. For instance, my personal experience with "drama" has probably increased due to indirect consequences of choices I've made based on entirely different motives, such as trying to save money by living with several roommates in cheap housing. Those experiences certainly taught me a new level of hatred for drama that now compels me to avoid living with roommates, but I'd sooner say I chose those experiences to avoid financial drama than to test my luck with social drama. Even at the times of those decisions (i.e., even before learning my new level of drama hatred), I recall feeling aversion to the social consequences of my financially driven decisions, not some guilty hint of secret excitement. This is anecdotal of course, but conversations with friends and colleagues lead me to believe my experiences weren't unrepresentative of typical roommate drama.</p>

<p><strong>References</strong></p>

<p><sup>
- Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., &amp; Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and denial. <em>Journal of Personality, 66</em>(6), 1081–1124. Retrieved from <a href="http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf</a>.<br>
- Beck, L. A., &amp; Clark, M. S. (2009). Choosing to enter or avoid diagnostic social situations. <em>Psychological Science, 20</em>(9), 1175–1181.<br>
- Emmons, R. A., &amp; McAdams, D. P. (1991). Personal strivings and motive dispositions: Exploring the links. <em>Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17</em>(6), 648–654.<br>
- Job, V., Langens, T. A., &amp; Brandstätter, V. (2009). Effects of achievement goal striving on well-being: The moderating role of the explicit achievement motive. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8), 983-996. Retrieved from <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289_Effects_of_achievement_goal_striving_on_well-being_the_moderating_role_of_the_explicit_achievement_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289_Effects_of_achievement_goal_striving_on_well-being_the_moderating_role_of_the_explicit_achievement_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf</a>.<br>
- McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., &amp; Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? <em>Psychological Review, 96</em>(4), 690–702. Retrieved from <a href="http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free_download/mcclelland_89_355.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free_download/mcclelland_89_355.pdf</a>.<br>
- McShane, S. L. (2009). <em>Organizational behavior</em>, 7th ed. (pp. 106). McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from <a href="http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample_ch04.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample_ch04.pdf</a>.<br>
</sup></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-20T06:03:13.500Z
2014-02-20T11:22:29.973Z
2017-04-13T12:56:16.167Z
Nick Stauner
<p>While the concept is more of a Freudian vestige in the modern world of psychology, it sounds like <a href="http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2009/reaction-formation-2/">reaction formation</a></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A type of defense mechanism whereby unacceptable, anxiety-causing emotions or impulses are masked by an exaggerated version of the opposite emotions or impulses.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I think you are on the right track when you speak of the fact that they actually like drama, or harbor feelings that they are secretly dramatic.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-08-25T17:32:30.380Z
2013-08-25T17:39:59.850Z
2013-08-25T17:39:59.850Z
Chuck Sherrington
<p>On social sites sometimes people will state, "I hate drama!", as if to say "if you cause drama, please go away."</p>

<p>My theory is the people who say this, in fact, actually like drama... as evidenced by the apparent hatred for it.  Has there been any research into this?</p>

<p>People could also say, "I hate being kicked in the rear!", which I'm sure most people would hate, and if it happened commonly enough, people may start posting such on their profiles.  This line of thinking leads me to believe that the statement of hatred for drama is the admission that drama is a commonly occurring problem.</p>

<p>Also, it seems to be as reasonable to state this on a profile as it is to hang a sign on a door reading, "I hate thieves!" or a sign on a backside saying, "I hate muggers!"  Since people don't commonly hang these types of signs, why do they hang the drama sign on their profiles?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-31T06:54:01.177Z
How is this a psychology question? People say lots of stuff on social sites. Are we to discuss why people say WTF and LOL and IMHO too?
Krishnaraj Rao
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-20T03:18:50.467Z
Strongly disagree with the above comment. It's not about the phrase itself; it's about the people who use it.
Nick Stauner
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-21T03:17:28.157Z
How about a simple physiological relationship? Drama increases cortisol level which leaves you feeling depleted. High cortisol is typically associated with increased risks. Of course, people have a deeply ambivalent relationship with drama, cortisol and risk. Maybe they hate it, maybe they are addicted to it.
JimB2
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-08-25T18:16:22.380Z
I think it's the question for English.SE because it's more about the understanding of the phrase
FolksLord
<social-psychology>
Why do people say they hate drama?
Randy
# Why do people say they hate drama?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-08-25)

On social sites sometimes people will state, "I hate drama!", as if to say "if you cause drama, please go away."

My theory is the people who say this, in fact, actually like drama... as evidenced by the apparent hatred for it. Has there been any research into this?

People could also say, "I hate being kicked in the rear!", which I'm sure most people would hate, and if it happened commonly enough, people may start posting such on their profiles. This line of thinking leads me to believe that the statement of hatred for drama is the admission that drama is a commonly occurring problem.

Also, it seems to be as reasonable to state this on a profile as it is to hang a sign on a door reading, "I hate thieves!" or a sign on a backside saying, "I hate muggers!" Since people don't commonly hang these types of signs, why do they hang the drama sign on their profiles?

**Tags:** social-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: I think it's the question for English.SE because it's more about the understanding of the phrase  
> **username_2**: Strongly disagree with the above comment. It's not about the phrase itself; it's about the people who use it.  
> **username_3**: How about a simple physiological relationship? Drama increases cortisol level which leaves you feeling depleted. High cortisol is typically associated with increased risks. Of course, people have a deeply ambivalent relationship with drama, cortisol and risk. Maybe they hate it, maybe they are addicted to it.  
> **username_1**: How is this a psychology question? People say lots of stuff on social sites. Are we to discuss why people say WTF and LOL and IMHO too?  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2013-10-17. Score: 7

People certainly express a dislike for drama for different reasons, and I'm going to hazard explaining a few of them that I think are potentially useful:

1. Expressing an opinion on 'drama', especially on social media, is
   usually a response to a [critical incident](http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/medicine/reflective/2.xml). Just as one
   generally does not go around complaining about dishonest auto
   mechanics (or car salesmen, or insurance salesmen, or crazy
   psychologists...) just to make conversation, one hopefully does not
   go around complaining about 'drama' unless one is responding to an
   event or set of events in-particular.

   What's different about interpersonal conflict is that, unless one is
   a shut-in, there are limitless opportunities to experience it, and
   thus there's always a potential cue handy if one wishes to opine.
   And oh, how some people love to opine!

   This critical incident hypothesis, if you will, is most likely to
   explain things like updating a profile or making a particular
   comment, etc. It isn't a sufficient explanation for a pattern of
   behavior, however - if it seems to be their favorite topic of
   discussion, it's probably not a simple critical incident.
2. If it's a person's favorite complaint, or perhaps with a
   dating-style site if it appears as a litmus test or chief complaint,
   it could be due to an on-going or past trauma. In other words,
   someone has experienced interpersonal conflict they find so
   unreasonable, and so deeply hurtful, that it's their most obvious
   non-negotiable list item when they go to think about what they don't
   want.
3. The reason the op eludes to is, in my favorite way to explain it, [the louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted the spoons](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/31953/the-louder-he-talked-of-his-honor-the-faster-we-counted-our-spoons). This is something we may refer to as an evaluation
   heuristic: when people proclaim how much they are X, the most likely
   they are not-X; or the louder they state they hate Y, the more
   likely they are to exhibit the traits of Y.

   In general, this can be an invaluably useful heuristic. As a woman
   if you encounter a man who often favors expressing how much he hates
   wife-beaters, for instance, you would likely do best to stay the
   hell away from him (as personal anecdote, one of the most vile human
   beings I've ever met often expressed his violent disgust for
   domestic violence); child-molesters are often witnessed as offering,
   unprompted, opinions about treating children well, etc. These sorts
   of things are red flags.

   And what is a red flag, really? It's something out of the ordinary,
   not generally experienced, that we perceive as being "statistically
   correlated" with the experience of something bad. Sometimes these
   gut feelings are good, sometimes they are mistaken, and they can
   often be easily manipulated one way or the other - but one is
   generally wise to never simply ignore such intuitions.

   Now, to be clear, this is only a heuristic - by definition it can be
   wrong, and it doesn't really 'explain' the behavior itself. It's
   just a good aid in decision-making.

   So while this is often true and valid, I do not offer this as a real
   explanation for the behavior. For that I simply continue to...
4. Selective attentiveness. If a person is dishonest, they surely
   know the value of honesty - it gives people the benefit of doubts,
   and "confidence" is the resource they most require to be successful
   in their manipulations. As such, they are very much aware of honesty
   and dishonesty, and actively try to cultivate such opinions. If
   someone seems over-eager to gain your trust, there aren't many ways
   for that to end well - maybe trying to get you to buy a $20 bottle
   of fruit juice, at best.

   However, as a criteria this one doesn't have total discriminatory
   power - people commonly victimized (the ill and disabled, for
   instance, people of low socio-economic class, etc), with PTSD, and
   certain personalities might be more focused on honesty and
   dishonesty. This is also made harder by context - if there is fear
   of being disbelieved or a lack of personal confidence in the self,
   this can be thrown way off and a person can be seen as dishonest
   falsely. Sadly, this same effect causes con-men to be believed
   because they learn to extort this heuristic and direct attention
   where they want it.
5. It's code for something else. What does "drama" even mean? As you
   point out, who the heck expresses a preference for interpersonal
   conflict and irrational attention seeking?

   To them, it may have a specific meaning in their mind: a certain set
   of related behaviors, probably mimicking soap-opera like "blow
   simple, common experiences out of proportion".

   Sometimes, I totally agree - it's important to have perspective, and
   if people always have a rain cloud over their head it can be
   fatiguing to be around them. However, all too often I've found this
   to be a flag for people who express no particular concern, empathy,
   or understanding of other people - they just don't care and don't
   want to be bothered with "other people's problems".

   This all too often reflects a character of selfishness and unconcern
   with others feelings, emotions, and experiences; someone might be
   reaching out for a little understanding, or a kind word, or asking
   for help, or even suffering from a severe mental or physical
   illness, or just venting. Casually dismissing such things as "drama"
   is...well, a red flag for me. But again, that's just a heuristic
   I've found to be useful.
6. Critical mass, or "everyone else says it". I'm fun-loving, too!
   From a user-experience view (wearing a different hat), requiring
   that someone say 'something' without guidance or proper
   understanding of what someone should or should not say tends to get
   people to just put what they think is appropriate based upon what
   other people say or what you tell them they should put.

   Depending on where you are, you can find a whole lot of people
   saying "no drama". I don't know if they even know what it means, any
   more than they know whether or not they are fun-loving or positive
   or outgoing or upbeat.
7. Boorishness. Some people just don't make good conversation, and
   maybe they just like to [tilt at windmills](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills).
8. They are middle-school or high-school aged girls. As a father of
   two of said human beings, it appears to be in the genetic or
   cultural makeup or realities of modern society that generate actual,
   imagined, or commentary on, drama.

**TLDR;**

They might just be, or are in close-contact with, high-school girls. For deeper thinking, see above.


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-02-20. Score: 5

To build on @ChuckSherrington's answer, I agree that what you're hypothesizing is essentially an application of [reaction formation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_formation) theory. I don't know if your particular applications have been studied, but the reaction formation process in general has been researched and supported ([Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer, 1998](http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf)). [Self-deception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception) is one of many factors that distinguishes [implicit from explicit motivation](http://www.psych2.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~oschult/humanlab/research/differences.htm) (see also [McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989](http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free_download/mcclelland_89_355.pdf); Emmons & McAdams, 1991). Reaction formation seems a likely marker of self-deception in cases where implicit and explicit motives conflict...especially if the reaction formation involves complaining! Concordance among various kinds of motives (implicit, explicit, goals, values, strivings, etc.) is important for well-being (e.g., [Job, Langens, & Brandstätter, 2009](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289_Effects_of_achievement_goal_striving_on_well-being_the_moderating_role_of_the_explicit_achievement_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf)), so expressing negative attitudes like in your examples might be a sign of negative affect elevated by internal conflict.

However, I could easily see your hypothesis being falsified for good reasons. While it's true that people's personalities affect their choices of situations to which they expose themselves (e.g., Beck & Clark, 2009), many of the situations people find themselves in are certainly not chosen. Situations can thus operate independently of preexisting personality characteristics in affecting attitudes (e.g., [McShane, 2009](http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample_ch04.pdf); see also the first figure in [this answer](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/5733/4086) depicting influences of both personality and external factors on attitudes).

More concretely speaking, it seems likely that many people who "hate drama" feel this way because they can't avoid it, regardless of whether they're actually trying. For instance, my personal experience with "drama" has probably increased due to indirect consequences of choices I've made based on entirely different motives, such as trying to save money by living with several roommates in cheap housing. Those experiences certainly taught me a new level of hatred for drama that now compels me to avoid living with roommates, but I'd sooner say I chose those experiences to avoid financial drama than to test my luck with social drama. Even at the times of those decisions (i.e., even before learning my new level of drama hatred), I recall feeling aversion to the social consequences of my financially driven decisions, not some guilty hint of secret excitement. This is anecdotal of course, but conversations with friends and colleagues lead me to believe my experiences weren't unrepresentative of typical roommate drama.

**References**

- Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., & Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and denial. *Journal of Personality, 66*(6), 1081–1124. Retrieved from <http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf>.  
- Beck, L. A., & Clark, M. S. (2009). Choosing to enter or avoid diagnostic social situations. *Psychological Science, 20*(9), 1175–1181.  
- Emmons, R. A., & McAdams, D. P. (1991). Personal strivings and motive dispositions: Exploring the links. *Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17*(6), 648–654.  
- Job, V., Langens, T. A., & Brandstätter, V. (2009). Effects of achievement goal striving on well-being: The moderating role of the explicit achievement motive. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8), 983-996. Retrieved from <http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289_Effects_of_achievement_goal_striving_on_well-being_the_moderating_role_of_the_explicit_achievement_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf>.  
- McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., & Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? *Psychological Review, 96*(4), 690–702. Retrieved from <http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free_download/mcclelland_89_355.pdf>.  
- McShane, S. L. (2009). *Organizational behavior*, 7th ed. (pp. 106). McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from <http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample_ch04.pdf>.


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2013-08-25. Score: 4

While the concept is more of a Freudian vestige in the modern world of psychology, it sounds like [reaction formation](http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2009/reaction-formation-2/)

> A type of defense mechanism whereby unacceptable, anxiety-causing emotions or impulses are masked by an exaggerated version of the opposite emotions or impulses.

I think you are on the right track when you speak of the fact that they actually like drama, or harbor feelings that they are secretly dramatic.


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