overpersonalize

English

Alternative forms

• overpersonalise

Etymology

over- +‎ personalize

Verb

overpersonalize (third-person singular simple present overpersonalizes, present participle overpersonalizing, simple past and past participle overpersonalized)

1. To attribute the too much of the cause of something to personal decisions and willpower, and not enough to other factors.
   • 1974, Samuel A. Culbert, The organization trap and how to get out of it, page 140:

     Putting this approach into action requires resisting our inclination to overpersonalize our role in problems and miss the systemwide issues.

   • 1996, Lucille L. Andreozzi, Child-Centered Family Therapy, →ISBN, page 44:

     Research on abusive parent-child relationships has found that parents often overpersonalize the child's behavior, attributing more negative than positive motivations to the child.

   • 2003, Doc Childre, Deborah Rozman, Transforming Anger, →ISBN:

     A second key skill for sustaining your emotional coherence is learning not to overpersonalize your deficits, since this just makes the energy drain worse.