I've been seeing more and more posts that use "hamster" or "hamstering" broadly to define pretty much anything coming out of a woman's mouth. It devalues the usefulness of the term. Here's primer for those new here.

Hamster is short for the term rationalization hamster which is a tool used by both men and women to rectify cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when you have two conflicting perceptions, desires, beliefs held in your mind. So to hamster is find a rationale that resolves the conflict in your mind.

PG Example of hamstering

Here is a simple example of cognitive dissonance taken from an old story: "A fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he decides that the grapes are probably not worth eating, with the justification the grapes probably are not ripe or that they are sour."

There are a number of ways that this applies to TRP. I'll throw out a couple of the big ones.

Hamstering to resolve subconscious desires and higher-conscious needs

One is that women have two modes of thinking when it comes sex and their attraction to men. At the subconscious layer, women are generally attracted to men displaying alpha characteristics - assertiveness, strength, confidence, dark triad, etc. At their high conscious layer, women are attracted to the things that you generally hear them talk about - kindness, stability, etc.

When traits in a given male do not satisfy both her subconscious and conscious layers, she will need to hamster to resolve the conflict. If she is with a beta provider, she will find some way to rationalize that he is a the right one for her despite the fact that he doesn't make her wet. If she is with a alpha-ish douchebag, she will find a way to rationalize that he is good for her.

Hamstering to resolve slutty behavior

Another TRP application is that Western women (and those slut-shaming cultures) will also hamster to rationalize their slutty behavior. A common example is the mental hoops a woman will jump through when you invite her back to your place at the end of the night. Her subconscious is totally DTF at this point. Her high conscious is telling her that it's a bad idea though. Her subconscious is going to usually win out, and her higher conscious will have to resolve the conflict. "Well, I haven't seen that movie yet actually." "It's too late and too far to my house."

/r/relationships Examples