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Rewriting Reality: The Sociological Context of Gaslighting

In 2007, Robin Stern published The gaslight effect: How to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life, highlighting gaslighting as a form of psychological abuse that makes victims question the validity of their perceptions. Since then, gaslighting has primarily been tackled from a psychological perspective. Some sociologists, however, theorize that gaslighting is not simply a psychological issue but a sociological one as well. They argue that gaslighting may take place unintentionally when a perpetrator acts on their biases towards members of other social groups, a concept known as epistemic gaslighting. As a form of intentional abuse, gaslighting has been established to have profoundly negative effects on its victims. However, there is a significant gap in research pertaining to the sociological aspects of gaslighting. This study therefore aims to establish the connections between power, social identity, and gaslighting susceptibility. Given the assumption that gaslighting relies on a power differential, this study uses an online, survey-based format to produce data which preliminarily supports the existence of epistemic gaslighting, and aims to be useful in ultimately linking psychological and sociological views of gaslighting behaviors.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:hut2024-1012
Date01 January 2024
CreatorsEngasser, Kristen L., Jr.
PublisherSTARS
Source SetsUniversity of Central Florida
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceHonors Undergraduate Theses

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