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Annoyance is an unpleasantmental state that is characterized byirritation anddistraction from one'sconscious thinking. It can lead toemotions such asfrustration andanger. The property of being easily annoyed is calledirritability.
Various reasons exist for why one finds particular stimuli annoying. Measurement of annoyance is highly subjective. As an attempt at measurement, psychological studies on annoyance often rely on their subjects' own ratings of levels of annoyance on a scale. Any kind of stimuli can cause annoyance, such as getting poked in the side or listening to a song repeatedly. Many stimuli that one is at first neutral to, or even finds pleasant, can turn into annoyances from repeated continued exposure. One can often encounterannoyance factors in media, includingpopular music,memes,commercials, andadvertising jingles, which by their nature are continually repeated over a period of weeks or months.
A study published in theInternational Journal of Conflict Management found that one's response to an annoyance, at least when the perceived cause is another person, escalate to more extreme levels as they go unresolved.[1] It also found that one was more likely to blame the party who was causing the annoyance in the study, rather than one's self, for the annoyance as it escalated.
Psychological warfare can involve creating annoyances to distract and wear down the resistance of the target. For example, in 1993, the United States'Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) played music "specifically selected for its irritation ability" on loudspeakers outside theBranch Davidian church inWaco, Texas in an attempt to bring about the surrender ofDavid Koresh and his followers.[2]
In the sense of "nuisance", the noun "annoyance" is found in the English "Jury of Annoyance" appointed by an act of 1754 to report upon obstructions in thehighways.[3]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Annoy".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 75.Authority control databases: National |
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