Jonah complex
{{Short description|Fear of success or realizing potential}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
File:Pieter Lastman (1583-1633) - Jonas en de walvis (1621) - Düsseldorf Museum Kunstpalast 15-08-2012 15-01-08.JPG), [http://www.apostoliki-diakonia.gr/bible/bible.asp?contents=old_testament/contents_Ionas.asp&main=ionas&file=36.2.htm LXX] (Septuagint), [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+2&version=DRA D–R] (Douay–Rheims Bible), [https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PTX.HTM NAB] (New American Bible), [https://www.bible.com/bible/463/jon.2.1.nabre NABRE] (New American Bible Revised Edition), and others); "Jonah ch. 1, v. 17 and ch. 2, vv. 1, 10" in [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+1-2&version=KJV KJV] (King James Version) and many other Protestant translations.]]
The Jonah complex is the fear of success or the fear of being one's best. This fear prevents self-actualization, or the realization of one's own potential.{{cite book|author=Abraham Maslow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LRcSeVPS9ykC&q=jonah+complex|title=The Farther Reaches of Human Nature|chapter=The Jonah Complex| date=October 1993 | publisher=Penguin Publishing | isbn=9780140194708 }}Department of Cognitive Science, Chris VerWys. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, [http://www.rpi.edu/~verwyc/MASLOWOH.htm Personality Psychology], Abraham Maslow It is the fear of one's own greatness, the evasion of one's destiny, or the avoidance of exercising one's talents.{{cite journal|last=Haronian|first=Frank|title=The Repression of the sublime|date=15 December 1967|url=http://synthesiscenter.org/articles/0130.pdf|accessdate=5 October 2011}} As the fear of achieving a personal worst may serve to motivate personal growth, likewise the fear of achieving a personal best may hinder achievement.
The Jonah complex is evident in neurotic people.{{cite book|author1-link=Gregory J. Feist|last1=Feist|last2=Feist|first1=Gregory|first2=Jess |title=Theories of personality |date=2009 |publisher=New York McGraw-Hill Higher Education |isbn=978-0-07-338270-8 |page=300 |edition= 7th}}
Etymology
Although Abraham Maslow is credited for the term, the name "Jonah complex" was originally suggested by Maslow's friend, Professor Frank E. Manuel. The name comes from the story of the Biblical prophet Jonah's evasion of the destiny to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh. Maslow states, "So often we run away from the responsibilities dictated (or rather suggested) by nature, by fate, even sometimes by accident, just as Jonah tried—in vain—to run away from his fate".
Causes
Any dilemma, paradox or challenge faced by an individual may trigger reactions related to the "Jonah complex". These challenges may vary in degree and intensity. Such challenges may include career changes, beginning new stages in life, moving to new locations, interviews or auditions, and undertaking new interpersonal commitments such as marriage.Goud, N. (1994). Jonah Complex: The fear of growth. Journal of Humanistic Education & Development, 32(3), 98–111. The crux of the Jonah Complex distinguishes to the subject an inability to differentiate humility from self-helplessness. Other causes include:
- Fear of the sense of responsibility and work required that often attends recognizing one's own greatness, talents, potential
- Fear that an extraordinary life would be too much out of the ordinary, and hence not acceptable to others inciting xenophobic rejection
- Fear by association of the ability honed being heightened and elevated as subject to a traumatic unrelated event, complex or memory
- Fear of seeming arrogant, self-centered, etc.{{cite web|url=http://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson-2000-maslow.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920072942/https://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson-2000-maslow.html|archivedate=20 September 2015|author=Eric Dodson|title=Course Notes for Humanistic Psychology (PSYC 2000)|work=University of Western Georgia}}
- Difficulty envisioning oneself as a prominent or authoritative figure{{cite journal|author1=Sumerlin, J. R. |author2=Bundrick, C. M. |year=1996|title=Brief index of self-actualization: A measure of Maslow's model|journal=Journal of Social Behavior and Personality|volume=11|issue=2|pages=253–271|doi=10.2466/pms.1998.87.1.115|s2cid=146163708 }}
See also
References
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