Concept creep (also known as semantic creep) is the process by which harm-related topics experience semantic expansion to include topics which would not have originally been envisaged to be included under that label. It was first described in a Psychological Inquiry article by Nick Haslam in 2016, who identified its effects on the concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice. Others have identified its effects on terms like "gaslight" and "emotional labour". The phenomenon can be related to the concept of hyperbole.
It has been criticised for making people more sensitive to harms and for blurring people's thinking and understanding of such terms, by categorising too many things together which should not be, and by losing the clarity and specificity of a term.
Although the initial research on concept creep has focused on concepts central to the political left's ideology, psychologists have also found evidence that people identifying with the political right have more expansive interpretations of concepts central to their own ideology (namely sexual deviance, personal responsibility and terrorism).Harper, Purser and Bagueley, Do Concepts Creep to the Left and to the Right? Evidence for Ideologically Salient Concept Breadth Judgments Across the Political Spectrum, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2022, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506221104643
See also Essentially contested concept Euphemism treadmill Victim mentality Boiling frog
References