inferiority complex - In Culture

A fundamental sense of inadequacy and insecurity out of proportion to real circumstances. An example may be of short individuals who have a driven need to assert themselves in social situations to overcome their sensitivity about their height.

An inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Unlike a normal feeling of inferiority, which can act as an incentive for achievement, an inferiority complex is an advanced state of discouragement, often resulting in a retreat from difficulties. A primary inferiority feeling is said to be rooted in the young child's original experience of weakness, helplessness and dependency. A secondary inferiority feeling relates to an adult's experience of being unable to reach an unconscious, fictional final goal of subjective security and success to compensate for the inferiority feelings. The perceived distance from that goal would lead to a "minus" feeling that could then prompt the recall of the original inferiority feeling; That the goal invented to relieve the original, primary feeling of inferiority, actually causes the secondary feeling of inferiority is the "catch-22" of this dilemma.

In Culture

In the popular British Sitcom Porridge, Mr Barrowclough states in the pilot episode, Prisoner and Escort, "I got so depressed I thought I'd better go and see the prison psychiatric department, y'know let them have a look at me inferiority complex.