Multiplicity (subculture)

Multiplicity, also called plurality or polypsychism, is an online subculture of people identifying as having or using multiple personalities.[1][2][3] Multiplicity communities mostly exist online through social media platforms[3] like TikTok.[2] Some multiplicity online spaces are support groups for related psychiatric conditions, like dissociative disorders. Due to their in-group culture, they also have been linked to iatrogenic effects like self-diagnosis of dissociative identity disorders and perpetuation of symptoms.[1][4]

This article is about the concept and associated online subculture. For the psychological disorder, see Dissociative identity disorder.

Definition

The coinage multiplicity describes people displaying or experiencing multiple personalities, selves, or identities in one mind and body, each with their own thoughts, emotional reactions, preferences, behavior, memory and sense of self.[5][6][7][8][9][10][1]

It commonly covers:[3][10]

See also: Tulpamancy § Tulpamancers

In contrast to dissociative identity disorder, the social movement of people who identify as "multiple" is under-researched.[1]

Resources dedicated to multiplicity started to appear early in the internet's history.[11] According to a member of the community interviewed by Vice Magazine, the multiplicity subculture and related vocabulary originated in mailing lists of the 1980s.[3] Playing video games has also been cited as a context in which people entertain multiplicity.[12]

Vice suggests that aspects of the online multiplicity community were also found in Haitian Vodou, spirit possession and the Tibetan practice of tulpamancy.[3] Nowadays, an online subculture dedicated to tulpamancy also exists, where practitioners willfully create and entertain tulpas, a form of an imaginary friend,[13] which has been described as an online multiplicity space.[11]

Characteristics

Multiplicity communities exist online through social media blogging sites like LiveJournal, Tumblr,[14][15] and more recently, TikTok, Reddit and YouTube.[2][4] They are composed of individuals who identify as "systems" of multiple distinct personalities, often called "alters", which can have different names, ages, genders, sexualities, and personalities from one another.[14][16][11] Other jargon used within multiplicity communities includes:

  • "Fronting", of the alter currently controlling the "system".[3]
  • "Switching", when an alter fronts in place of another one.[2]
  • "Headspace" or "inner world", the concept of a mental space in which alters interact together.[14][3]
  • "Singlet", referring to a person that does not experience plurality.[1][3][10]
  • "Traumagenic", of plurality caused by or rooted in psychological trauma[11]
  • "Endogenic", of plurality that has non-traumagenic roots.[11]

Who is considered a system

A common question in online multiplicity communities is whether or not a medical condition or a medical diagnosis is required to be considered a "system".[1][3] In their 2017 study on online multiplicity, Ribáry et al. wrote that some aspects of the community cannot be explained by the medical picture of dissociative identity disorder. While studying a sample of the online multiplicity community, he noted that alters exhibited continuity in behavior and sense of self, demonstrated good everyday functioning, and lacked the diagnostic criterion of amnesia, in particular, while performing voluntary "switches".[1] Psychology Today describes members' narratives of non-disorder plurality as "often not distressing or functionally impairing" and that it may be better characterized as a form of neurodiversity.[11] Some systems consider that they were born with the condition.[1]

Online multiplicity communities may embrace all types of multiple personalities under the multiplicity label[3] or instead only cater to those reporting dissociative disorders.[2] Within those online spaces, influencers redefine multiplicity as functional multiplicity. It signifies functioning well with multiple personalities, as opposed to the traditional picture of treating dissociative identity disorder by curing its symptoms ("fusing" the personalities).[2]

Role as a support community

Participating in online multiplicity communities can remedy social isolation.[1][4] Ribáry et al. found that for participants, adopting a plural identity helps them cope with identity disorders and that discovering the notion of multiplicity and participating in related communities "is helpful and therapeutic".[1] Neuropsychologist Aubry Bakker also reports that recording daily life on social media can help fill memory holes and help with the reconciliation of dissociated identities in DID patients.[4]

Further information: Mental illness portrayed in media § TikTok

Psychologist Naomi Torres-Mackie, head of research at The Mental Health Coalition, states that multiplicity-related social media content led to an increase in self-diagnosis of related disorders. She reported that her adolescent patients who frequent online multiplicity communities confuse normative experiences with having a clinical disorder.[4] Ribáry et al. wrote that participation in those online spaces prevents access to healthcare, adding that individuals with minor identity problems may develop more severe identity problems due to the social code within such communities.[1] TikTok influencers frequently portray dissociative identity disorders lightheartedly, subject to community response promoting such content and downgrading content that talks about emotional struggles.[2]

A paper published in 2022 in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry described how prolonged social media use, especially on video-sharing platforms including TikTok, has exposed young people, largely adolescent females, a core user group of TikTok, to a growing number of content creators making videos about their self-diagnosed disorders. "An increasing number of reports from the US, UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia have noted an increase in functional tic-like behaviors prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic, coinciding with an increase in social media content related to […] dissociative identity disorder." The paper concluded by saying there "is an urgent need for focused empirical research investigation into this concerning phenomenon that is related to the broader research and discourse examining social media influences on mental health".[17][18][19]

As a personality style

In personality research, the term plurality can also refer to personality style defined as "an individual's relatively consistent inclinations and preferences across contexts".[20]

Stephen E. Braude and Rita Carter use a different definition of personality style, defining "personality style" as "personality" and proposing that a person may have multiple selves and not have any relatively consistent inclinations and preferences in personality. This may happen as an adaptation to a change of environment and role within a person's life and may be consciously adopted or encouraged, in a similar way to acting or role-playing.[21] For example, a woman may adopt a kind, nurturing personality when dealing with her children but change to a more aggressive, forceful personality when going to work as a high-flying executive as her responsibilities change.[22]

See also

References
  1. Ribáry, Gergő; Lajtai, László; Demetrovics, Zsolt; Maraz, Aniko (2017-06-13). "Multiplicity: An Explorative Interview Study on Personal Experiences of People with Multiple Selves". Frontiers in Psychology. 8: 938. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00938. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 5468408. PMID 28659840.
  2. Lucas, Jessica (6 July 2021). "Inside TikTok's booming dissociative identity disorder community". Input. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  3. Telfer, Tori (2015-05-11). "Are Multiple Personalities Always a Disorder?". Vice. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  4. Styx, Lo (2022-01-27). "Teens Are Using TikTok to Diagnose Themselves With Dissociative Identity Disorder". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2023-06-30.
  5. "Exploring the experiences of young people with multiplicity". Youth & Policy. 2021-07-21. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  6. Eve, Zarah; Heyes, Kim; Parry, Sarah (2023-09-12). "Conceptualizing multiplicity spectrum experiences: A systematic review and thematic synthesis". Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy. doi:10.1002/cpp.2910. ISSN 1063-3995.
  7. "Enacted Identities: Multiplicity, Plurality, and Tulpamancy | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  8. cooper, mick (1996). "MODES OF EXISTENCE: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL POLYPSYCHISM" (PDF). Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis. 7 (2): 1.
  9. Rowan, John, ed. (1999). The plural self: multiplicity in everyday life (1. publ ed.). London: Sage Publ. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-7619-6076-8.
  10. "What we can learn about respect and identity from 'plurals' | Aeon Ideas". Aeon. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  11. "Enacted Identities: Multiplicity, Plurality, and Tulpamancy | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 2023-06-30.
  12. "Multiplicity and Identity Mitigation in Video Games | Nightmare Mode [Archived]". Retrieved 2023-07-02.
  13. Mikles, Natasha L.; Laycock, Joseph P. (2015). "Tracking the Tulpa: Exploring the "Tibetan" Origins of a Contemporary Paranormal Idea" (1): 87–. doi:10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  14. Riesman, Abraham (2019-03-29). "The Best Cartoonist You've Never Read Is Eight Different People". Vulture. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  15. https://www.lycoming.edu/schemata/pdfs/Sullivan.pdf
  16. Parry, Sarah; Eve, Zarah; Myers, Gemma (2022-07-21). "Exploring the Utility and Personal Relevance of Co-Produced Multiplicity Resources with Young People". Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. 15 (2): 427–439. doi:10.1007/s40653-021-00377-7. ISSN 1936-1521. PMC 9120276. PMID 35600531.
  17. Davey, Melissa (2023-01-08). "'Urgent need' to understand link between teens self-diagnosing disorders and social media use, experts say". The Guardian.
  18. Haltigan, John D.; Pringsheim, Tamara M.; Rajkumar, Gayathiri (2023-02-01). "Social media as an incubator of personality and behavioral psychopathology: Symptom and disorder authenticity or psychosomatic social contagion?". Comprehensive Psychiatry. 121: 152362. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2022.152362. PMID 36571927. S2CID 254628655.
  19. Giedinghagen, Andrea (January 2023). "The tic in TikTok and (where) all systems go: Mass social media induced illness and Munchausen's by internet as explanatory models for social media associated abnormal illness behavior". Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 28 (1): 270–278. doi:10.1177/13591045221098522. ISSN 1359-1045. PMID 35473358. S2CID 248403566.
  20. Eriksen, Karen & Kress, Victoria E. (2005). "A Developmental, Constructivist Model for Ethical Assessment (Which Includes Diagnosis, of Course)". Beyond the DSM Story: Ethical Quandaries, Challenges, and Best Practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Page Publications. ISBN 0-7619-3032-9
  21. Stephen E. Braude (1995), First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 86, ISBN 9780847679966
  22. Carter, Rita (March 2008). Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality, Identity, and the Self. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316115384.

Further reading
  • Ian Hacking (2000). What's Normal?: Narratives of Mental & Emotional Disorders. Kent State University Press. pp. 39–54. ISBN 9780873386531.
  • Jennifer Radden (2011). "Multiple Selves". The Oxford Handbook of the Self. Oxford Handbooks Online. pp. 547 et seq. ISBN 9780199548019.
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