Are you looking for a word that will let someone know they are using you as the scapegoat in their conversation, or as a psychological barrier for their mischief? You could use the term 'gaslighting' to make your meaning more clear. This post unpacks the meaning and origin of this expression.
Meaning
The term 'gaslighting' is a descriptive verb that refers to the psychological trait of someone who tries to convince someone else of their instability or insanity. There are several different ways to use the term, with the variations 'gaslighted', 'gaslighting' and 'gaslight' all considered valid for use.
Sometimes the form 'gaslit' can be used when referring to the action in the past tense. The accepted active form of the word is 'gaslights'.
Most often the term appears as an accusation that someone is being gaslighted or gaslit.
'Gaslighting' is seen as a negative thing and a means of psychological manipulation that often works for the benefit of the culprit. If someone is being gaslit, then someone is wrongly trying to convince them that they, instead, are the wrong ones.
Example Usage
“Stop gaslighting your brother about the monster in his closet and just tell him that you've been hiding in there at night to scare him. He's not crazy, you are.”
“My parents had a really bad marriage. I remember that my father kept trying to gaslight my mother, and one day she just stuck her head in the gas oven because she couldn't take it anymore.”
“If there are two things that we don't need to see in politics anymore, it would be the Chewbacca Defense and gaslighting.”
“If you want to make sure you stay married for a long time, then gaslighting is not the way to go. George Carlin said that men are stupid and women are crazy, but that women are only crazy because men are stupid.”
Origin
The popular term 'gaslighting' originates from a 1938 play called “Gaslight”, which was later turned into an even more popular movie with the same name in the year 1944.
In the plot of the film, a husband steals from his wife by convincing her to doubt her own mental state over the course of the movie. When the husband leaves home, the literal gas light on the outside of the house fades, hence the name.
'Gaslighting' can be considered similar in some ways to the term scapegoating, where the victim of this action gets most of the blame for an unrelated event. Both terms can be seen as a means of described psychological manipulation.
The term has been around for decades, but the term as it gets used today only became more popular in the 2010s.
'Gaslighting' would receive increased mentions on social media after the year 2010, and soon be absorbed into popular speech. Recorded use of the term 'gaslighting' takes it back to 2016, when the American Dialect Society named it the most useful new word for the year.
While 'gaslighting' is not yet a defined psychological definition, several serious studies have mentioned the term so far. With more studies, 'gaslighting' could become
Phrases Similar to Gaslighting
- Scapegoating
Phrases Opposite to Gaslighting
- Validation
What is the Correct Saying?
- Gaslighting
- Gaslighted
- Gaslit
Ways People May Say Gaslighting Incorrectly
There are several incorrect ways to use the term gaslighting, or to attribute a wrong meaning to the word.
The term 'gaslight' and 'gaslighting' refers to a form of psychological manipulation where someone is made to question their sanity even though they are not incorrect: often the term gaslighting is used by people who simply feel that the other party in the conversation is wrong.
This is not the correct way to use the term gaslighting, and this is in itself a type of reasoning fallacy to invalidate someone's argument.
Acceptable Ways to Phrase Gaslighting
The right way to use the term 'gaslighting' is to use it when describing knowing psychological manipulation by another party to invalidate your point.
If someone tries to attack someone's individual emotional perception of something with an unrelated point – such as by saying, “Oh, that's crazy!” - this is considered a valid example of gaslighting.