the.com/superiority complex
Insecurity wearing a crown it never earned, loudly.
means An exaggerated, defensive sense of one's own superiority, often used to mask underlying feelings of inferiority or self-doubt.
from Coined in early 20th-century psychology, from the work of Alfred Adler and his followers, who built a whole theory around the 'inferiority complex' — the idea that felt inadequacy drives much of human striving. The 'superiority complex' emerged as its mirror image: not opposite but offspring, the theory being that the loudest displays of superiority are often compensation for a hidden sense of not measuring up. 'Complex' itself comes from psychoanalytic jargon, borrowed from Latin complexus ('woven together'), meaning a tangle of linked feelings and impulses operating below conscious notice.
- origin
- Adler coined it to describe overcompensation for inferiority
- tell
- needs an audience to feel the feeling
- irony
- usually masks the exact opposite belief
- cure
- rarely therapy, usually just losing once publicly