Siege mentality
Encyclopedia
Siege mentality is a shared feeling of victimization and defensiveness. It is a state of mind whereby one believes that one is being constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated and makes one frightened of surrounding people. This can cause a state of being overly fearful leading to a defensive attitude.
Although the term evolved from real siege
s, fortress of military defences, today it may refer to persecution feelings by anyone in a group that views itself as a threatened minority. This can be used in the field of sports, where coaches or managers often create a siege mentality in their players by highlighting an environment of hostility from outside the club (whether the hostility is real or exaggerated does not matter). Siege mentalities are particularly common in business, the result of competition or downsizing. Some religious groups may have this paradigm, particularly if they are not traditional mainstream groups. In addition to these sociological applications, this mentality also has political ones. For instance, dictatorships have been known to encourage this point of view among their own people, since it justifies the continuance of those in power.
(See Isolationism
& Xenophobia
)
: sege, from Old French
: seat, from Vulgar Latin
: sedicum.
Although the term evolved from real siege
Siege
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...
s, fortress of military defences, today it may refer to persecution feelings by anyone in a group that views itself as a threatened minority. This can be used in the field of sports, where coaches or managers often create a siege mentality in their players by highlighting an environment of hostility from outside the club (whether the hostility is real or exaggerated does not matter). Siege mentalities are particularly common in business, the result of competition or downsizing. Some religious groups may have this paradigm, particularly if they are not traditional mainstream groups. In addition to these sociological applications, this mentality also has political ones. For instance, dictatorships have been known to encourage this point of view among their own people, since it justifies the continuance of those in power.
(See Isolationism
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
& Xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
)
Etymology
Middle EnglishMiddle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
: sege, from Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
: seat, from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
: sedicum.
See also
Related psychological behaviours:- Defence mechanisms: can arise when one feels the need to defend oneself while being under siege.
- Persecution complex: may develop because one feels victimized and/or the need to defend against an outgroupOutgroupIn cladistics or phylogenetics, an outgroup is a group of organisms that serves as a reference group for determination of the evolutionary relationship among three or more monophyletic groups of organisms....
.