Ten-year-old Diego really likes his classmate Sierra. This feeling makes him uncomfortable because he is unsure if she likes him back. Instead of telling Sierra that he likes her, Diego makes fun of her in front of the other girls. Diego is engaging in which defense mechanism?

A. Reaction formation

B. Displacement

C. Sublimation

D. Rationalization

A. Reaction formation

Explanation:

Sigmund Freud is considered the father of psychoanalysis which is a school of therapy that focuses a lot in the unconscious and how our early development influences our later behaviors.

According to him, there are defense mechanisms which are defined as the mental processes that are often unconscious and that protects us from anxiety that we would feel if they weren't there. In other words, they protect us from feeling anxious.

Reaction formation is one of these defense mechanism in which a person thinks their feelings are unacceptable and therefore they display the opposite behavior than what they feel (like for example when a toddler expresses a lot of love for his newborn sister even when he is jealous).

In this example, Diego likes Sierra but this makes him uncomfortable so instead of telling her, he makes fun of her, displaying the opposite behavior (as if he didn't like her at all). Therefore he is engaging in the reaction formation defense mechanism.