Expansion of a concept to the point of meaninglessness
Concept creep is the process by which harm-related topics experience semantic expansion to include topics which would not have originally been envisaged to be included under that label.[1] It was first identified by Nick Haslam in 2016, who identified its effects on the concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice.[2] Others have identified its effects on terms like "gaslight"[3] and "emotional labour".[4] The phenomenon can be related to the concept of hyperbole.[5]
It has been criticised for making people more sensitive to harms[6] and for blurring people's thinking and understanding of such terms, by categorising too many things together which should not be, and by losing the clarity and specificity of a term.[4]
Although the initial research on concept creep has focused on concepts central to the political left's ideology, psychologists have also found evidence that people identifying with the political right have more expansive interpretations of concepts central to their own ideology (ex. sexual deviance, personal responsibility and terrorism).[7]
According to Haslam, there are two explanations for why concept creep has trended in favor of greater sensitivity towards harm: the first being "just as successful species increase their territory, invading and adapting to new habitats, successful concepts and disciplines also expand their range into new semantic niches" and the second being "Psychology has played a role in the liberal agenda of sensitivity to harm and responsiveness to the harmed ... and its increased focus on negative phenomena ... has been symptomatic of the success of that social agenda."[6]
^Haslam, Nick; Tse, Jesse S. Y.; De Deyne, Simon (2021). "Concept Creep and Psychiatrization". Frontiers in Sociology. 6: 806147. doi:10.3389/fsoc.2021.806147. ISSN 2297-7775. PMC 8716590. PMID 34977230.
^Haslam, Nick (2016-01-02). "Concept Creep: Psychology's Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology". Psychological Inquiry. 27 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2016.1082418. ISSN 1047-840X. S2CID 147479811.
^"Concept Creep, Or "You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means."". Poly Land. 2018-11-30. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
^ abBeck, Julie (2018-11-26). "The Concept Creep of 'Emotional Labor'". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
^Haslam, Nick; Vylomova, Ekaterina; Zyphur, Michael; Kashima, Yoshihisa (September 2021). "The cultural dynamics of concept creep". American Psychologist. 76 (6): 1013–1026. doi:10.1037/amp0000847. PMID 34914436. S2CID 245262396. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
^ abFriedersdorf, Conor (2016-04-19). "Why Americans Are So Sensitive to Harm". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
^Harper, Purser and Bagueley, Do Concepts Creep to the Left and to the Right? Evidence for Ideologically Salient Concept Breadth Judgments Across the Political Spectrum, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2022, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506221104643
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