Some common synonyms of hypercritical are captious, carping, censorious, critical, and faultfinding. While all these words mean "inclined to look for and point out faults and defects," hypercritical suggests a tendency to judge by unreasonably strict standards. hypercritical disparagement of other people's work.
Extreme sensitivity to criticism
People with avoidant personality disorder are very sensitive to anything critical, disapproving, or mocking because they constantly think about being criticized or rejected by others. They are vigilant for any sign of a negative response to them.
They are setting limits on your disrespectful/inconsiderate behavior. They want you to understand how your actions are hurting or disadvantaging them. They are trying to bully or intimidate you so they can feel powerful. They are defending their own actions by pointing out that you also did some things wrong.
Unfortunately, this can happen in the workplace, and it's called “destructive criticism.” It's a type of criticism that's intended to harm, undermine, or even destroy someone's creation, reputation, or self-esteem. It's when someone chews you out, mercilessly rips apart your idea, or publicly denigrates your abilities.
Manipulative behaviors include gaslighting, denial, lying, blaming, criticizing, exaggerating, withholding, and more.
Being self-critical is often linked with underlying mental illness, particularly with anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. If you notice that it's difficult or impossible to put away negative thoughts about yourself, or that they're constantly on your mind, it's time to seek help.
Researchers believed some individuals were more sensitive to criticism than others due to a cognitive bias that led them to interpret ambiguous information negatively, rather than in a neutral or positive manner.
Narcissistic personality disorder.
People with this disorder present severely overly-inflated feelings of self-worth, grandness, and superiority over others. People with narcissistic personality disorder often exploit others who fail to admire them. They are overly sensitive to criticism, judgment, and defeat.
In psychology, criticizing is linked with ego-protection, which means that people criticize others because of a perceived personal weakness. I might criticize someone's house because of my exaggerated concerns and worries about my own feelings about being successful.
Self-criticism likely originates from our early relationships with caregivers and peers. For example, children whose parents are more controlling and less affectionate grow up to be more self-critical adults. Also, people who have been abused tend to be much more self-critical than those who have not.
Self-criticism is often associated with major depressive disorder. Some theorists define self-criticism as a mark of a certain type of depression (introjective depression), and in general people with depression tend to be more self critical than those without depression.
Narcissists also gaslight or practice master manipulation, weakening and destabilizing their victims; finally, they utilize positive and negative emotions or moments to trick others. When a narcissist can't control you, they'll likely feel threatened, react with anger, and they might even start threatening you.
Narcissistic rage occurs when a narcissist is confronted with contrary beliefs about their perceived importance or grandiosity. The narcissist is injured, and responds with anger. Being on the receiving end of this rage can produce feelings ranging from anxiety to downright terror.
It's not known what causes narcissistic personality disorder. The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to: Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements.
Judging and criticizing others can also give the illusion of control. That is, if you are able to tell someone what's wrong with them, you not only think you see more than they do, you might also imagine that your criticism will cause them to change their ways.
Insecure people often use criticism of others as a way to feel better about themselves. See, people who are insecure consistently feel bad about themselves. And often, they don't know how to feel better in a healthy or productive way. So they often resort to criticizing others.
Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is psychological rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse, constant criticism, intimidation or more subtle tactics, such as manipulation, or constant displeasure with you.
Criticism that's destructive is delivered disrespectfully, usually as a personal attack or emotional outburst. It's undermining and hurtful. And often, it's non-specific. For example, a worker calling a colleague stupid for making a mistake is destructive.
Research shows that criticism takes a toll on the recipient, causing anger, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, avoidance, poor performance and self-harm. The critic, however, is unaware of the damage and feels that it is the best form of help.
Perfectionism. Perfectionist tendencies manifested themselves through a propensity to criticize the others and a deep fear of being judged.
"A partner who criticizes frequently is a partner who does not know how to communicate, may not care enough about your feelings, and may fail to consider that the relationship must work between the two of you," Dr. Klapow says.