overgreatness

“Nor does this occur unconsciously, or as a consequence of a sort of lapse of memory concerning the meaning or the importance of an empirical problem, it also happens at least half consciously by way of a characteristic psychic process which everybody may identify in his own experience: i. e., the idea occurs, in some degree subconsciously, that the overgreatness of the work done in one direction ought to be corrected by the inadequacy of the work done in the other direction.”

Criminal Psychology: a manual for judges, practitioners, and students