Word for exaggerating a response [closed]
Solution 1:
of some idioms, I like: blown out of proportion. TFD
Exaggerated or magnified beyond the true scale or truth of the matter.
As in:
In soccer, players often blow out of proportion their injuries to make their opponent look more guilty.
In the case of the police in particular, as you referenced, to embellish comes to mind: Vocabulary.com
That's what can happen when you embellish by adding too many false or exaggerated details to a story.
As in:
"Whoa whoa ... whoa! Calm down, sir." after the person with whom they are speaking says something innocent.
Here the officer is embellishing his response and his authority to the 'words' of a suspect/prep/innocent person.
Solution 2:
melodramatising
Meaning 3 seems to fit.
melodrama (ˈmɛləˌdrɑːmə) n
- (Film) a play, film, etc, characterized by extravagant action and emotion
- (Theatre) (formerly) a romantic drama characterized by sensational incident, music, and song
- overdramatic emotion or behaviour
- (Theatre) a poem or part of a play or opera spoken to a musical accompaniment
Solution 3:
As an idiom, those people are making a mountain out of a molehill.
From Wikipedia:
Making a mountain out of a molehill is an idiom referring to over-reactive, histrionic behaviour where a person makes too much of a minor issue. It seems to have come into existence in the 16th century.
Metaphor
The idiom is a metaphor for the common behaviour of responding disproportionately to something - usually an adverse circumstance. One who "makes a mountain out of a molehill" is said to be greatly exaggerating the severity of the situation. In cognitive psychology, this form of distortion is called magnification or overreacting. The phrase itself is so common that a study by psychologists found that with respect to familiarity and image value, it ranks high among the 203 common sayings they tested.Similar idioms include 'Much ado about nothing' and 'Making a song and dance about nothing'.
Solution 4:
I think you can use ther term overreaction:
Overreact:
to react in an extreme, especially an angry or frightened, way:
- Try not to overreact to criticism.
(Cambridge Dictionary)