Meaning of displacement activity in English

displacement activity

noun [ C or U ]

psychology specialized

/dɪˈspleɪs.mənt ækˌtɪv.ə.t̬i/ uk

/dɪˈspleɪs.mənt ækˌtɪv.ɪ.ti/

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an unnecessary activity that you do because you are trying to delay doing a more difficult or unpleasant activity:

When I was studying for my exams I used to clean the house as a displacement activity.

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Acting and acts

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(Definition of displacement activity from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of displacement activity

displacement activity

Does hyperactivity, a constant grin and wild chatter indicate cheerfulness or mania, or is it displacement activity that masks insecurity or several, or all, or none of these?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Everything else is what psychologists call displacement activity.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

There is a phenomenon in the animal kingdom that is known to zoologists as displacement activity.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

Alcohol on flights is not there to help; it is a displacement activity to make one feel better and to counteract the fear of plunging from the sky.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

Dancing may also be a displacement activity when the nest or young are threatened.

From

Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

Displacement activities may also occur when animals are prevented from performing a single behaviour for which they are highly motivated.

From

Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

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