0 US spelling of defence mechanism
1 an automatic way of behaving or thinking by which you protect yourself from something, especially from feeling unpleasant emotions:
Arrogance is often a defense mechanism.
In one of these chapters, he presents a psychoanalytic critique of ethnic identity as a ' collective defense mechanism ' (p. xiii).
When the individual cannot handle the threat to selfesteem and ensuing helplessness with a cognitive defense mechanism, depression results.
The chromatic parceling out can be an effective defense mechanism for these organisms.
This rhetoric was used by individuals as a defense mechanism in dealing with the turbulence of change.
The answer is that the threat simulation system is a biological defense mechanism that is always ready to react to possible threats.
Demonizing and denying the humanity of the other is described as a major defense mechanism used by each side to justify aggression against the other.
The mammalian heat shock (or stress) response: a cellular defense mechanism.
Therefore, a possible explanation is defense mechanism.
