Lecture
| Inferiority complex |
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 Alfred Adler was the first to describe the inferiority complex |
Inferiority complex — a set of psychological and emotional feelings in a person, expressed in a sense of one's own inadequacy and an irrational belief in the superiority of others over oneself.
The inferiority complex arises from a variety of causes, such as: discrimination, emotional trauma, one's own mistakes and failures, and the like. The inferiority complex significantly affects a person's well-being and behavior.
The first person to research and describe the inferiority complex was the Viennese psychologist Alfred Adler.
People suffering from an inferiority complex view themselves as something insignificant and inadequate. In many patients, this leads to the development of depression, which in severe cases may be followed by a risk of suicide.
One symptom of an inferiority complex can be the display of signals by which the sufferer tries to draw the attention of other people to themselves. Other symptoms may include a lack of contacts, fear of people, fear of making a mistake, and constant tension. An inferiority complex is sometimes also a subconscious cause of speech defects.
Attempts to compensate for one's own inferiority complex through an ostentatious victim role are often characteristic. In young men, increased aggressiveness and alcohol consumption, as well as status symbols such as gold jewelry, sports cars, and distinctive clothing, are often observed as a way to mask a sense of inferiority. Excessive arrogance can likewise indicate an internally disturbed sense of self-worth.
The inferiority complex is, on the whole, a negative phenomenon. However, in some cases it can motivate a person to achieve positive goals in life.
Demosthenes
Wilma Rudolph (right) winning the 100-meter dash at the 1960 Olympics
Alfred Adler believed that the inferiority complex develops in children for several reasons:
Physical defects are often compensated for through intensive training. For example, Demosthenes, who stuttered from childhood, became one of the great orators; Wilma Rudolph, who suffered from polio as a child and as a result had long-lasting problems walking, became a three-time Olympic champion in track and field. Adler suggested that great people achieved their results, including in creative work, in the process of overcoming their own inferiority complexes.
If the inferiority complex is not overcome, this can lead to neurosis in adulthood. Sometimes the inferiority complex manifests itself outwardly as a superiority complex — in boastfulness and arrogance.
A sense of inferiority and the depression that stems from it often have roots in early childhood. It has been scientifically proven that insufficient attention to a child and constant criticism can undermine the development of a healthy sense of self-worth in an adolescent.
At the same time, it should be noted that Sigmund Freud, in his "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis," wrote:
I know that you have heard a great deal about the sense of inferiority which is said to characterize neurotics in particular. It shows itself especially in so-called imaginative writing. The writer who has used the phrase "inferiority complex" believes that in doing so he has satisfied all the requirements of psychoanalysis and has raised his composition to a higher psychological level. In reality, the artificial phrase "inferiority complex" is scarcely used in psychoanalysis at all. It is for us anything but a simple, let alone an elementary, matter. To trace it back to a self-perception of some possible organic underdevelopment, as devotees of the so-called school of individual psychology like to do, seems to us a short-sighted error. The feeling of inferiority has deeply erotic roots. A child feels inferior if it notices that it is not loved, and it is the same with an adult. The only organ that can be regarded as inferior is the rudimentary penis, the girl's clitoris. But for the most part the feeling of inferiority stems from the relation of the Ego to its Super-Ego, being, like the sense of guilt, an expression of the tension between them. The feeling of inferiority and the sense of guilt are in general hard to distinguish from one another. It might perhaps be correct to regard the former as the erotic complement to the sense of moral inferiority. We in psychoanalysis have paid little attention to this question of drawing distinctions.
Precisely because the inferiority complex has become so popular, allow me to make a small digression here. A certain historical figure of our time, who is still alive but has withdrawn from affairs, suffered, as a result of a birth injury, some degree of underdevelopment of one of his arms. A very well-known writer of our day, who prefers above all to write biographies of remarkable people, took up the life of this man I have mentioned. But it is hard to suppress the urge to delve into psychology when writing a biography. So our author ventured to build the entire development of his hero's character on the feeling of inferiority caused by this physical defect. But in doing so he overlooked one small, though not unimportant, fact. Mothers to whom fate has given a sick or defective child usually try to make up for this injustice with excessive love. In our case, the proud mother behaved differently — she withheld her love from the child because of his defect. When he became a powerful man, he proved through all his actions that he had never forgiven his mother for this. If you consider the significance of a mother's love for a child's emotional life, you will probably find yourself mentally revising the biographer's theory of inferiority.
— Sigmund Freud, "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis"
Freud was apparently referring to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who from birth suffered from a congenital physical defect — a damaged left arm that was 15 cm shorter than his right.
Alongside psychological factors, the role of other external factors — demographic, social, political, religious, ethnic, and even sexual — is no less important in the development of an inferiority complex. Members of minorities, being victims of discrimination, often suffer from an inferiority complex in one or several of the aforementioned categories. For example, among ethnic minorities an ethnic inferiority complex is not uncommon. Among people raised in poor families, against the backdrop of the affluence of others, a class inferiority complex may form, and so on.
The inferiority complex arises when feelings of inferiority are intensified in a person due to despondency or failures. Those at risk of developing the complex include people who: show signs of low self-esteem or self-respect, or have low status within a peer group. They may also display symptoms resembling depression. Children raised in families where the parents are perceived as having excessively high expectations may also develop an inferiority complex.
According to Adler, "everyone (...) experiences a feeling of inferiority. But the feeling of inferiority is not a disease; it is rather a stimulus for healthy, normal striving and development. It becomes a pathological condition only when the feeling of inadequacy overwhelms a person and, instead of stimulating him toward useful activity, makes him depressed and incapable of development."
Classical Adlerian psychology draws a distinction between primary and secondary feelings of inferiority.
When an inferiority complex manifests fully, it can affect a person's performance as well as their self-esteem. Unconscious psychological and emotional processes can suppress a student's ability to receive and understand new information, in addition to causing excessive vigilance resulting from an inability to accept or understand one's own subconscious feeling of inferiority.
In his doctoral dissertation, Guy Hatt found that in students experiencing difficulty learning mathematics, the subject may become associated with a psychological inferiority complex, low motivation and self-efficacy, poor self-study strategies, and a feeling of insecurity or anxiety.
In populations undergoing treatment in a psychiatric clinic, this complex sometimes overlaps with other disorders, such as certain types of schizophrenia, mood disorders, and personality disorders. Alfred Adler identified the inferiority complex as one of the factors contributing to certain unhealthy childhood behavior patterns.
People with a heightened feeling of inferiority have a greater tendency toward self-concealment, which in turn leads to increased loneliness and reduced happiness.
Inferiority complexes are closely related to neuroticism, a trait from the Big Five personality model. In addition, inferiority complexes show small negative associations with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion, but are positively associated with Machiavellianism and narcissism.
Related to the inferiority complex is the "superiority complex," a psychological defense mechanism in which the outward display of a person's superiority displaces or conceals their feelings of inferiority. The superiority complex, which Adler distinguishes from an ordinary desire for social recognition, leads to vulgar displays of self-esteem or status stemming from deep feelings of inferiority — sometimes assessed by observers as a form of imposture.
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