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2022: Creating a Lexicon of Future
G is for Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as making someone question their own reality.
The term may also be used to describe a person (a “gaslighter”) who presents a false narrative to another group or person which leads them to doubt their perceptions and become misled (generally for the gaslighter’s own benefit), disoriented or distressed. Generally, this dynamic is possible only when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or when the audience is fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative.
The term is derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband uses trickery to convince his wife that she is mentally unwell so he can steal from her.
Gaslighting was largely an obscure or esoteric term until the mid-2010s, when it broadly seeped into English lexicon. According to the American Psychological Association, the term “once referred to manipulation so extreme as to induce mental illness or to justify commitment of the gaslighted person to a psychiatric institution but is now used more generally”. The term is now simply defined as “to make someone question their reality.” ~ Wikipedia
