Inferiority Complex: A Seemingly Harmless Personality Blemish of Grave Societal Consequences

By Lanre Ajiboye

The idea to write the book, Inferiority Complex did not just come out of the blues. Since I came across the statement that a child is born without character or personality there is not a time that the statement has a greater influence on me than when I started out to write this book. This is because, I could not have found a better opportunity to understudy a divergent group of people than I found in my capacity as the then Supervisory Councillor for Health and Medical Services of Ilesa East Local Government Council, in Osun State of Nigeria.
Be that as it may, I should just briefly state here that this five-chapter book has taken cognizance of psychological, physiological, sociological, physical, genetic, mystical, religious, societal, and environmental factors on the emergence or otherwise of inferiority complex in individuals, and the inevitable effects it brings to bear on the development and well-being of society and its prevention or remedial precautions as applicable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490705965

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© Copyright 2014 Lanre Ajiboye (Lance Spearman).

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

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Intelligence as an aptitude to performance of any assignment is the inherent basis of individual self-confidence and positive self-actualization which in turn constitutes an anti-dote to feelings of inferiority.

Envy is a feeling of resentment aroused because of another person’s superior qualities, possessions, achievements or position and the desire to have them for one’s self.

ANON

Any advantage held by another can trigger of a feeling of envy. It may be intelligence, good looks, popularity, a good job, a better spouse or even a person’s spiritual insights, political or intellectual foresights. The most devout Christian or Muslim is also not immune to subtle temptation of envy.

ANON

When you encourage a man to see himself as a victim of anything-crime, poverty, bigotry, bad-luck, you are piling bricks on his chest. The tendency to see one’s self as a victim of life’s injustices is widespread today. It’s easy for all of us to feel that our misfortunes have somehow deprived us of the opportunity or the will to become the kind of people we long to be.

-DAVID GELERNTER-

When your supposed misfortunes have been allowed to deprive you of your own will or efforts to strive towards actualizing your dreams and attain your ambition, then you have reached a mature stage of complex. Whereas you need not be a victim when Christ your redeemer is already a victor. That reminds me of an artist who asserted that the best solution in life is to use your oppressors stumbling block as your stepping stone to success.

Contents

Acknowledgement

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1. Definition and Cause

Chapter 2. Process of Development

Chapter 3. Behavioural Manifestations

Chapter 4. Incidental Repercussions on Society

Chapter 5. The Way Out

Appendices

A. True Life Examples

B. Sub-Conscious Tell-Tales of Complex

C. Complex Sufferers’ Group Examples

References

Books by the Same Author

In Psalm 139, David praised his creator and acknowledged that he was fearfully and wonderfully made (v.14) and skillfully wrought (v.15). So is each one of us. Our creator-God delights in our individuality. We don’t have to envy others or feel inferior to them. Instead, we ought to express our uniqueness by serving God as best as we can."

DJD

Dedication

Dedicated to all Nigerians but particularly to those who join the cult and other secret societies and others who might think they belong to the deprived groups or have passed through deficient upbringing through unhappy family background etc.

"The urge to do evil is primary in all of us while the efforts at doing good is merely secondary and only a learned process of life.

ANON

If you allow the man who plans to frustrate you see that you are shaken, then you accord him the pride of victory, but if you pretend to be oblivious of his game-plan, then his intrigues becomes a boomerang and he becomes the victim of his own making by being frustrated instead of you.

Every normal human person has some margin of complex inherently built in to his personality. It is only one’s level of attainment of, or advancement into, maturity that tends to gradually evaporate the seed of inferiority complex from the psyche of the person.

Acknowledgement

My acknowledgement and gratefulness go to the God Almighty first and foremost.

Without much ado, I should then thank the 1999 Party Executive of the Ilesa East Local Government Chapter of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Osun State who denied me ticket to contest the Council Chairmanship Election of 1999 before compensating me with an appointment to the post of a Supervisory Councillor of the Ilesa East Local Government Council of Osun State of Nigeria.

This is because, without that position, I would not have had the opportunity to offer advices which would be the basis of envy and criticisms against my person and which subsequently provided me the opportunity of understanding people who are near what Fela, the late Afro-beat King might have referred to as vagabond-in-power and impetus for writing this book and six others which focused predominantly on improvement of service and performance at the Local Government level. After due and realistic review of the reason why public officers and other people should revolt against offer of good advice that ought to make government achieve in service delivery to the people, I was convinced beyond doubts that some fundamental hinderances must be responsible hence the need to undertake the research that culminated in the birth of this book.

I acknowledge herewith also the enabling environment created by my career and political colleagues in the Council, for living true to human nature that helped me to deduce correct and unbiased inferences from direct and close-range observation of normal character of human persons and their reactions to specific issues.

I also acknowledge that everyone, myself inclusive, has traits of complex which may manifest at varying degrees, gravity and frequency depending on the underlining maturity ratings and development exigency of individual persons.

Finally, I hereby acknowledge those authors and publishers from whose works, I have drawn inspirations, facts and inputs as listed on the references page at the back of the book, but by and large, I am only responsible for any limitations and shortcomings that might be associated with this book.

Complex, like conscience, is an integral part of man, each competing to hold a pre-eminent position in his life. An amplification of complex advances man into neurosis which may be subtly criminal, while a suppression of conscience encourages him to becoming, wicked and subsequently criminal. Two of a kind, you may say.

Lanre Ajiboye

Author’s Preface

The idea to write the book, Inferiority Complex did not just come out of the blues. Since I came across the statement that a child is born without character or personality there is not a time that the statement has a greater influence on me than when I started out to write this book. This is because, I could not have found a better opportunity to understudy a divergent group of people than I found in my capacity as the then Supervisory Councillor for Health and Medical Services of Ilesa East Local Government Council, in Osun State of Nigeria.

Be that as it may, I should just briefly state here that this five-chapter book has taken cognizance of psychological, physiological, sociological, physical, genetic, mystical, religious, societal, and environmental factors on the emergence or otherwise of inferiority complex in individuals, and the inevitable effects it brings to bear on the development and well-being of society and its prevention or remedial precautions as applicable.

Lanre Ajiboye

"A heart full of love has no room for envy.

Selfishness is a reflection of an immature mind. An immature mind is a conducive environment for gestation of selfishness which is also an inherent and acceptable aspect of the nature of competitiveness, capitalism and economy. Since the human person, according to J.A.C. Brown, is naturally economic, political and gullible, all-believing, competitive, basically selfish and always struggling to be best, it is therefore deductable to say that every individual person is endowed with some traces and varying degrees of inferiority complex.

CHAPTER 1

Definition and Cause

Definition and Causes of Complex

Definition

To get at the meaning and definition of Inferiority Complex, being a composite term, let us start by describing the component words that make up the term from their respective cognitive individual and joint connotations viz:

Inferiority   —   A state of being inferior

Inferior   —   Something or someone lower in rank, social status, importance, quality etc in relation to others in comparison.

Complex   —   Abnormal state of mental attitude which is the result of past experience or suppressed tendencies e.g. obsessive concern or fear.

Inferiority Complex — A state of mind in which a person has a morbid feeling of being inferior to others.

A common characteristic of those suffering from feeling of complex indicates that many a time, they attempt to win recognition for themselves by being boastful and/or being unnecessarily excessive, assertive, oppressive or aggressive in doing things or in their relationship with other people, or on the other extreme being extraordinarily compromising, submissive or humble.

In distinguishing between the distinctive duality of the human personality of;

a)   The mind and such allied terms of soul and spirit which deal with the mental activities of wishing, thinking, planning and feeling on the one hand, and

b)   The body and component organs made up of flesh, bones and muscles which deal with the physical activities of speaking movement and violence etc; on the other hand.

One would see that inferiority complex in its basic and preliminary state is a mind-controlled, non-verbal activity which may transform to verbal and physical manifestations only during its advanced and applied stages in form of speaking boastfully or even in application of oppression, violence and aggression to settle scores.

In view of this inherent connection of physical manifestation and activities to the mental personality of man, a cursory look at psychological undertones in the handling of inferiority complex becomes rational and inevitable.

Introduction to Psychology

Psychology is a branch of science dealing literally with the study of the mind and its process. However, in the last century or so its area has somewhat broadened indicating that one cannot consider the mind as totally isolated from the body and so psychology now takes cognizance of the study of human personality and behaviour.

Psychologists are now therefore preoccupied with the study of the behaviour and brain of animals wherever such studies throw light on human behaviour. It is important to realize that psychologists are first and foremost trained as scientists and not as medical experts. They do not necessarily take interests in abnormalities of the brain and mental processes as a primary and fundamental aspect of their training. Those who go for clinical psychology may need to go deep in to this and also add a further training in the field of psychoanalysis.

Having hinted at an inherent connection between the mind and the body representing the duality of personality of man, a simple demarcation is made to reflect what area is being considered between psychology which is the study of the mind and physiology which deals with the bodily machine through which the mind as the engine performs.

Since mind activities are generally unseen, its treatment sometimes tends to be based on some form of metaphysical and extra-scientific doctrines about the nature of man. For this reason we may not necessarily limit ourselves to purely physiological and philosophical problems at that, but it is still pertinent to ask whether psychology can be defined as being unilaterally and adequately covering the study of the mind hence the prowling in to the realm of metaphysical and its associated methods of studying the minds such as astrology, occult and mysticism.

An obvious consequence of the above mentioned conceptual dichotomy of body and mind had lent credence to the divergent methods of studying both; stating that observational and experimental methods of natural science are appropriate for the study of the body while the study of the mind by psychologists is more often than not, by introspection or a system called armchair psychology consisting of ‘looking inside’ to describe what was found in the study of a particular subject and generalizing the findings to other people.

The acknowledged developmental stages in the history of psychology include:

a)   Application of general methods of natural sciences to the study of mind leading to the abandonment of the much-touted sharp distinction between mental (mind) and physical (bodily) aspects of man.

b)   Recognition of introspection as a potent method of study which was eventually to be discarded because of its later