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Exaggeration is a representation of something in an excessive manner. The exaggerator has been a familiar figure in Western culture since at least Aristotle's discussion of the alazon: 'the boaster is regarded as one who pretends to have distinguished qualities which he possesses either not at all or to a lesser degree than he pretends...exaggerating'.

It is the opposite of minimisation.

Words or expressions associated with exaggeration include:

Everyday and psycho-pathological contexts

Contexts of exaggeration include:

Manipulation

The boasting and bragging by arrogant or manipulative people has been sent up on stage since the first appearance of the alazon - 'a stock character in Greek comedy'. Inflated praise in the form of flattery and puffery has a similarly lengthy history.

Amplifying achievements, obstacles and problems to seek attention is an everyday occurrence, as 'in exaggerating what one feels by magnifying the emotional expression: this is the ploy used by the six-year-old who dramatically twists her face into a pathetic frown, lips quivering, as she runs to complain to her mother about being teased'.

Exaggerating is also a type of deception, as well as a means of malingering - magnifying small injuries or discomforts as an excuse to avoid responsibilities.

Alarmism

Alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat e.g. the increases in deaths from infectious disease.

Humour

'Some theoreticians of the comic consider exaggeration to be a universal comic device'. It may take different forms in different genres, but all rely on the fact that 'the easiest way to make things laughable is to exaggerate to the point of absurdity their salient traits'.

Caricature

A caricature can refer to a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness: 'disproportionately increasing and emphasizing the defects of the features'. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.

Slapstick

Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence and activities which exceed the boundaries of common sense. These exaggerated depictions are often found in children's cartoons, and light film comedies aimed at younger audiences.

Paradoxical laughter

Paradoxical laughter is an exaggerated expression of humor which is unwarranted by external events. It may be uncontrollable laughter which may be recognised as inappropriate by the person involved. Freud considered 'the compulsive laughter which so often occurs on mournful occasions' the by-product of ambivalence.

Miles Gloriosus

The boastful soldier or Miles Gloriosus has for thousands of years formed part of the Western stage. 'The original miles gloriosus in Plautus is a son of Jove and Venus who has killed an elephant with his fist and seven thousand men in one day's fighting. In other words, he is trying to put on a good show: the exuberance of his boasting helps to put the play over'.

Overacting

Overacting is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be required for the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations or to stress the evil characteristics of a villain. Since the perception of acting quality differs between people the extent of overacting can be subjective.

Tragedy

Though the boaster (alazon) is primarily a comic figure, 'the alazon may be one aspect of the tragic hero as well: the touch of miles gloriosus in Tamburlaine, even in Othello, is unmistakable, as is the touch of the obsessed philosopher in Faustus and Hamlet'.

Expressionism

'"Expressionist art"...attempted to intensify the expression of feeling and attitude by exaggeration'. In its wake, even the 'new and hard realism...kept much of the distortion and exaggeration which had been one of the chief devices of earlier Expressionism'.

Metaphors

• "Making a mountain out of a molehill"
• "Blow out of proportion" or "Blow out of all proportion"
• "The sky is falling in"
• "World War III has broken out"
• "Make a song-and-dance of it"
• "Over egging the pudding"

Literary analogues

• In the BookWorld, warnings are issued about ' Poetry Island...any visit longer than a few hours will have an exaggerating effect on the senses. Upbeat poems will tend to have you laughing uncontrollably, while sombre poems will have you questioning your own worth in a most hideously self-obsessed manner'.
• The Monty Python Dirty Fork sketch demonstrates an absurd level of catastrophization where restaurant staff commit suicide and murder each other because of a customer complaint of a dirty fork. Compare with the scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail involving the Black Knight character which is the opposite extreme of absurdity (minimisation).

See also

References

1. Aristotle, Ethics (Penguin 1976) p. 165.
2. H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature (London 1966)p. 49
3. ""puff piece." Answers.com". The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992. Retrieved 22 July 2006.
4. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (London 1996) p. 113.
5. Guerrero, L., Anderson, P., Afifi, W. (2007). Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
6. R. Rogers Clinical Assessment of Malingering and Deception 3rd Edition, Guilford, 2008. ISBN 1-59385-699-7
7. David Murray, Joel Schwartz (25 May 2008), "Alarmism is an infectious disease", Society, 34 (4): 35, doi:10.1007/BF02912206
8. Emil Draitser, Techniques of Satire (1994) p. 135
9. M. Eastman/W. Fry, Enjoyment of Laughter (2008) p. 156.
10. Filippo Baldinucci, quoted in Harold Osborne ed., The Oxford Companion to Art (Oxford 1992) p. 204.
11. Caricature in literature
12. Sigmund Freud, Case Studies II (PFL 9) p. 74.
13. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton 1973) p. 165.
14. Frye, p. 39.
15. Harold Bloom, Thomas Hardy (2010) p. 93
16. Harold Osborne ed., The Oxford Companion to Art (Oxford 1992) p. 397.
17. Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing (London 2011) p. 249.

Further reading

Books

• Duttmann, AG; Phillips, J Philosophy of Exaggeration (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy) (2007)

Academic papers

• Clayer, JR; Bookless, C; Ross, MW Neurosis and conscious symptom exaggeration: Its differentiation by the illness behaviour questionnaire Journal of Psychosomatic Research Volume 28, Issue 3, 1984, Pages 237-241
• Demaree, HA; Schmeichel, BJ; Robinson, JL; Everhart, D. Erik Behavioural, affective, and physiological effects of negative and positive emotional exaggeration. Cognition and Emotion, Volume 18, Number 8, 2004, 1079-1097(19)
• Masterson, J; Dunworth, R; Williams, N Extreme illness exaggeration in pediatric patients: A variant of Munchausen's by Proxy?. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Vol 58(2), Apr 1988, 188-195.
• McNicholas, F Slonims, V & Cass H Exaggeration of Symptoms or Psychiatric Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy? Child and Adolescent Mental Health 2003 Volume 5 Issue 2, Pages 69 – 75
• Mittenberg, W; Patton, C; Canyock, EM; Condit, DC Base rates of malingering and symptom exaggeration. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. Vol 24(8), Dec 2002, 1094-1102.
• Mueller, J Simplicity and spook: Terrorism and the dynamics of threat exaggeration International Studies Perspectives, 2005
• Pieper, WJ Exaggeration, puffery, inferential beliefs and deception in advertising - 1976 - University of South Carolina.
• Sperling, OE Exaggeration as a Defense. Psychoanal Q., 32:553-548. (1963).

External links

• Magnification and Minimization
• Cognitive Distortion #6: Magnification and Minimization

• Use dmy dates from March 2011
• Social psychology
• Cognitive biases
• Defence mechanisms
• Diversionary tactics
• Rhetorical techniques
• Public relations techniques