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What are the causes of Inferiority complex?

The most famous cause behind feeling inferior is some event that happened somewhere in your past; something that's made you label yourself as inadequate or not worthy. There are hundreds of events that may have caused you to label yourself so as a child. Below is a list of possible causes:

• Having different skin color than your peers, (for example you are dark skinned and all of them are white) and being mocked for that
• Being called names like lazy or stupid by teachers and peers
• Being, consciously, physically weaker than peers.
• Being handicapped and mocked for it.
• Feeling ugly compared to your peers
• Being an unskilled player in your school's popular sport.
• descending from a lower social level than that of your peers'.
• Always being called names by parents; like stupid, idiot or fool.

Generally speaking, there's usually something different about you that makes you feel inferior, and the key there is regarding that difference as a disadvantage. Not every kid grows up feeling inferior; those so believe that something is wrong with them and that's why they're treated as inferiors. Consider the example of you not being smart as a kid, but surrounded by loving teachers and friends, chances are you would never suffer any feelings of inferiority.

Inferiority and compensation

People with inferiority complex tend to compensate for their feelings of inferiority by achieving somewhere else like excelling in studies or sports. They always have the need to achieve in order to compensate for their inferiority; don't be surprised at the fact that a great number of achievers are a direct result of inferiority complex. Another type of compensation is trying to act with superiority; you give a pretense that is contrary to your feelings, you think and act as if you are superior to everyone else just to compensate the feeling of being inferior, this is called superiority complex.

Overcoming inferiority

In order to overcome this feeling of inferiority, you must first examine your past and know the true reason or the root cause behind it. The greatest pitfall people usually fall for, when searching for the root cause of their feelings, is associating their feelings of inferiority to any current external condition; not being successful, not having a fancy car and luxurious house, not getting high grades or not having a beautiful girl friend.

What you should know here is that your current status in life has got nothing to do with your feeling inferior. A balanced person wouldn't feel inferior even if he didn't have anything in comparison to his peers. Inferiority is an internal feeling that comes due to internal factors, not external ones; fixing the inside is what should be done. Some people spend their lives collecting everything they can; like money, authority and power yet suffer the feeling of inferiority in spite of it all. Evidently, they're still suffering as they haven’t dealt with the root cause. On the other hand, this may come in handy as that feeling of inferiority could lead to major achievements in your life as in the previous cases.

There's a different category to inferiority all together, one that is called culture cringe; where a whole society may feel inferior compared to another, like for example a third world country citizen who feels that his country is inferior to a first world country.

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Got more questions?

Yeah, how to get rid of the inferiority complex?

yes, i feel inferior because am not as rich as my friends

ok but why do i feel that i am better than some people yet feel inferior to others!!

I guess my past is still affecting me, what can i do regarding it?

hmmm, what are labels??

Why did you mention parents as being one of the causes?

i want to raise mentally healthy children, what to do?

how come that inferiority could be useful?