Willis Klein

I was thrilled to read this recent article in Personality and Individual Differences by Ellen Dapperger and Karl-Heinz Renner, who develop a new measure of gaslighting that focuses on specific gaslighting behaviours without being bound to specific relationship contexts.

They then examine how this measure relates to personality traits and psycho-social outcomes that have been previously associated, either theoretically or empirically, with gaslighting.

I was really excited to see how carefully they read past qualitative and theoretical work by myself, Dr. Jennifer Bartz and Dr. Suzanne Wood. The authors not only empirically confirm some of our theories and past observations, but they also build on them, adding interesting nuance that has given me a lot of food for thought!

Their work also addresses a lot of questions I’ve heard frequently over the years about the prevalence of gaslighting, who is likely to experience it, and in which relationships.

I’d encourage anyone interested in the topic to give this paper a read!