TY - JOUR
T1 - Suppressing thoughts of past events
T2 - Are repressive copers good suppressors?
AU - Barnier, Amanda J.
AU - Levin, Kirsty
AU - Maher, Alena
PY - 2004/6
Y1 - 2004/6
N2 - We investigated the ability of individuals with a "repressive coping style" to strategically control thoughts of events from their past, which made them feel either proud or embarrassed, within the thought suppression paradigm. We examined whether (low) anxiety and (high) defensiveness interacts to influence suppression success over and above anxiety and defensiveness alone using low anxious, repressor, high anxious, and defensive high anxious groups. For the emotionally positive "proud event", all groups avoided event-related thoughts when instructed to suppress. For the emotionally negative "embarrassed event", repressors reported fewer event-related thoughts than all other groups, even when not instructed to suppress. Repressors also reported the lowest level of suppression effort and showed no " rebound". We discuss repressors' memory performance in terms of their natural tendency to avoid negative self-referent material, and thought and memory control in everyday life.
AB - We investigated the ability of individuals with a "repressive coping style" to strategically control thoughts of events from their past, which made them feel either proud or embarrassed, within the thought suppression paradigm. We examined whether (low) anxiety and (high) defensiveness interacts to influence suppression success over and above anxiety and defensiveness alone using low anxious, repressor, high anxious, and defensive high anxious groups. For the emotionally positive "proud event", all groups avoided event-related thoughts when instructed to suppress. For the emotionally negative "embarrassed event", repressors reported fewer event-related thoughts than all other groups, even when not instructed to suppress. Repressors also reported the lowest level of suppression effort and showed no " rebound". We discuss repressors' memory performance in terms of their natural tendency to avoid negative self-referent material, and thought and memory control in everyday life.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=3042638129&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02699930341000428
DO - 10.1080/02699930341000428
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:3042638129
SN - 0269-9931
VL - 18
SP - 513
EP - 531
JO - Cognition and Emotion
JF - Cognition and Emotion
IS - 4
ER -