Talk:Gaslighting

People trying to introduce double negatives into the lede

The lede has a sentence that says:

Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

Evidently some people think this is ambiguous or they find it hard to understand. There have been a number of recent attempts to "correct" it:

1. [1] Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents never occurred to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
2. [2] Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents did not occur to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

In the original, the abuser is denying that the incidents occurred. i.e. the abuser is saying, no, they did not happen.

1. In this version, the abuser is denying that the incidents never occurred. i.e. the abuser is saying, yes, they did happen.
2. In this version, the abuser is denying that the incidents did not occur. i.e. the abuser is saying, yes, they did happen.

In both cases, the editors are trying to introduce a double negative either in the belief that that was what must be meant, or that it did not change the meaning. This seems very strange to me because I only really understand European English. This is the version of English used in Europe (including the British Isles), in which double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative. Toddy1 (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@Toddy1: It appears that the issue started when someone (who apparently didn't quite understand the word "ever") wrongly changed the word "ever" to "never". I think Philip Cross resolved the issue by removing the word "ever", which was just for emphasis and isn't necessary. The point is that the gaslighter is being covertly abusive; for the abuse to be covert, the gaslighter has to deny the abuse. Biogeographist (talk) 13:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

A 1974 Reference in The Six Million Dollar Man

I was advised that I have to come here for consensus, which tells me that this is a dead-end, since I have never seen a consensus actually form in a talk page on this site, but what the heck, I'll try anything once...

In the episode, "The Seven Million Dollar Man," Steve Austin (the hero) runs into another bionic man, but his boss (and friend) Oscar Goldman, his doctor (and friend) Rudy Wells, and his nurse (and friend) Carla Peterson all deny the existence of anyone else with bionics, and tell him he's been imagining it. When he finally gets proof and confronts Goldman, Goldman again tells Steve that he's imagining things, but Steve cuts him off with "Well, what I'm starting to imagine is that the three people I trust most in the world are gaslighting me!"

The Fandom site for "The Six Million Dollar Man" has this reference: https://bionic.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seven_Million_Dollar_Man#Quotes

And so does IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0702124/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu

Either of those should be enough of a reference for something as simple as this, but both together is a slam dunk. I don't know what else you want, other than perhaps an article in the New York Times about the quote, and I think that's taking things just a little too far. This is just a reference to gaslighting about 40 years before we really started hearing it these days and about 30 years after the term first appeared. DeeJaye6 (talk) 22:28, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Both Fandom and IMDb are user-generated (see WP:UGC) and can't really be used as sources. I'm not usually a fan of IPC sections, but if we have to have them, this example would otherwise probably be worth including since it demonstrates that the show's writer(s) were explicitly making reference to the term and is a much earlier example than the others listed. However, the sourcing concerns still need to be addressed first. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 22:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Note that until six days ago a similar pop culture reference from an October 1968 episode of The Doris Day Show was in the article but it too was deleted (and not by me) for lack of a secondary source, citing WP:IPCV (not a policy, but a good reason): "However, passing mentions of the subject in books, television or film dialogue, or song lyrics should be included only when the significance of that mention is itself demonstrated with secondary sources." Biogeographist (talk) 01:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

You gentlemen are allowing minutiae to get in the way of references that can help to peg when the phrase was used. As it currently stands, a person reading this article would think that the movie came out, and then 60 years later, people started using the phrase in popular culture. Further, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not flat-out impossible, to cite the kinds of sources you are demanding for references like the Six Million Dollar Man or for the Doris Day Show. Those are very old shows that are not part of the current zeitgeist, and only archival sites like IMDb or fan sites (like FanDom) will actually have references like this. I could also point out that the DVDs of the show are also references, but I have no doubt that you would claim that is original research. As it stands, I cannot see how to satisfy this ridiculously constraining requirement and yet, Deacon Vorbis also said that the earlier examples would "probably be worth including," and gave good reasons for why. All Biogeographist seems to care about are that the Rules Are Followed.DeeJaye6 (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Then use books and (if available) old periodicals. You can use books published at the time. Or you can use recently-published books that look back at those times - for example, I bought a book that talked about the impact on Dnepropetrovsk of Western [mainly British] pop music and music videos during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, called Rock and Roll in the Rocket City.

Some old periodicals have scanned - for example The Engineer and the R.U.S.I. Journal - though you may have to obtain access through a subscription or a library.-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:12, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Biogeographist, the reference I made was not a "passing mention" in that episode. The other characters, for the first 15 minutes of the show, had been engaging in gaslighting behavior, made all the more obvious when the main character realized it and called them on it. As such, your claim that this needs more than the IMDb or FanDom references is flawed. DeeJaye6 (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The two sources you have cited are not generally reliable. Fandom and IMDB are both WP:UGC. Wikipedia favors secondary sources for both accuracy and also for establishing due weight. One episode of a TV show, which has many other episodes, is not a useful reference for this content. Grayfell (talk) 03:41, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, it is your opinion that it is "not a useful reference." The reference takes up roughly 1/3 of an episode (which was only 50 minutes long due to commercial breaks), and there were only 99 episodes. Look at the other references and do the math. The Steely Dan song is only 1 of about 81 songs they produced, and the Days of Our Lives reference is to only 2 months out of over 600 months of the show's run. I maintain that the references, in addition to the actual DVDs themselves, are reliable enough to put this reference back in, to establish that at least one reference was made in popular culture prior to 2000. The 1968 Doris Day Show reference was an actual "passing reference" as it really had little to do with the rest of the episode. Such cannot be said about the Six Million Dollar Man episode I am referencing. DeeJaye6 (talk) 08:39, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

It is reasons like above expressed by Grayfell is why Wikipedia lacks any substantive credibility. How many songs or episodes produced by a TV show or band is irrelevant to whether the reference was made as such a reference establishes that the term was in use by the time the episode was produced, which is the point in establishing the word's etymological chronology. Wikipedia editors just make up their own rules. This is why it is still not considered a valid academic reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:6000:E48B:B600:70BB:C242:2E5D:AF9A (talk) 01:34, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Reference to play and films

"The play's title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed"

This is incorrect, and actually gets the plot turned backwards. The abuser is searching for jewels, which he believes are in the attic of the building they are in. Each night he goes out, but sneaks back in to search the attic. When he turns on the gaslight in the attic, the lights dim throughout the house. When his wife notices this, and hears footsteps (in an apparently empty house) he starts to create other distractions and subterfuges, so she would believe it is her imagination and she is losing her mind.

The dimming of the gas light was not the gaslighting. The gaslighting was made necessary by the fact the wife noticed the gas light dimming on a regular basis, as he searched the attic.

This is the case with both the original play and the two films: Gas Light § Synopsis and Gaslight (1944 film) § Plot.

If folk don't mind, I'll let someone else rewrite this, as this article is about the behaviour, and I am likely to go on too much about the play and films. Perhaps it would be easier simply to delete this sentance? ChrisMalme (talk) 07:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@ChrisMalme: If your only objection is to the quoted sentence, why not just rewrite that single sentence? Biogeographist (talk) 12:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Gaslighting Picard

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Star Trek NG fans will readily recognize this to be a clear instance of gaslighting. Here[3] is better source, although it doesn't directly state it:

"Dream House as Five Lights" is a chapter that looks at psychological trauma through the lens of Picard’s torture at the hands of the Cardassians on Star Trek: The Next Generation. "Dream House as 9 Thornton Square" takes its title from a location in the film Gaslight and explains how the movie gave gaslighting its name.

This one[4] however is more direct:

In “Chain of Command, Pt. II,” Picard is taken prisoner by an enemy alien race, the Cardassians, and interrogated for secret military plans by Gul Madred (David Warner) ... Madred’s gaslighting technique ....

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Iikigaii (talk • contribs) 02:52, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

This strongly appears to be WP:BE. An unblocked editor should start a fresh discussion with better sources. Finding one source which uses the term in passing is wholly insufficient to meet WP:IPC guidelines. We are not interested in attempting to catalog every single use of the term by sources. Grayfell (talk) 04:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Politics section POV tag

An IP prefaced the politics section bottom (text about Trump) “The following are examples of gaslighting due to the use of partisan citations.“ and appended “(non-partisan citations needed)”. For better form, I have replaced that with a POV dispute tag on the section.

I also think there are two reasonable concerns here.

First, the content differs in that it is dealing with current events in a LABEL way, more a POV claim about President Trump than a descriptive about the topic, while the others are long-past that help understand what ‘gaslighting’ is. So the IP asserts the section is itself gaslighting.

Second, the complaint is that of POV (or perhaps cherry-picked) citations and the IP said non-partisan cites are needed. I doubt there really *are* many non-partisan sources these days, but yes the Washington Post and New York Times and CNN have an adversarial history with President Trump so that this label may be more an reflection of that than anything different about his gaslighting than of others, and yes there is no cite to Epoch Times or any RS noted as pro-Trump or right-wing.

I think the section appears unnecessary and not adding anything about the TOPIC, just a digression of noting an individual and current-politics attack. Unless something is technically unique about the gaslighting of President Trump (I.e. excluding simple allegations that he does it or accusations of ‘worst’ or ‘frequent’), it seems best to just delete the paragraph as unnecessary addition. Alternatively this could follow NPOV by adding other significant views in DUE proportion, but I don’t see any topical example or new flavour of gaslighting offered so that seems still unnecessary. Finally, this could BALANCE by offering remarks of Biden gaslighting — but that just seems adding more POV of the other form, and I’d rather eliminate the POV disput.

Preferences ? Thought ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:42, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Gender Neutral Language in Descriptive Sections.

As the article describes, Gaslighting often occurs within the context of a relationship and is used with frequency by both male and female parties to the relationship. Using gendered language in descriptive sections of the article introduces additional factors that are not essential characteristics of the phenomenon being described.

The second paragraph of the Characteristics section begins with a quote from Dorpat's Gaslighting, the Double Whammy, Interrogation, and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis that uses male pronouns in its descriptive:

Gaslighting depends on "first convincing the victim that his thinking is distorted and secondly persuading him that the victimizer's ideas are the correct and true ones".

I propose changing the quoted text from its present form to the following:

Gaslighting depends on "first convincing the victim that [their] thinking is distorted and secondly persuading [them] that the victimizer's ideas are the correct and true ones."

Replacing "his" with "their," "him" with "them," and bracketing each word to indicate the variation from the quoted source. Also, moved the period from outside to inside the quotes for gramatical reasons.

Thank you for your consideration. ( Citationsaurus (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC) )