The discrepant repressor: Differentiation between low anxiety, high anxiety, and repression of anxiety by autonomic–facial–verbal patterns of behavior.

Examined the notion that personality questionnaires can be used to predict different styles of coping with anxiety, as expressed by individual differences in patterns of autonomic, verbal, and nonverbal reactions. In line with earlier modifications of the repression–sensitization concept, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS) were used to select 4 groups of 12 Ss each from a pool of 206 male university students in Germany: low-anxious Ss, repressors, high-anxious Ss, and defensive high-anxious Ss. Measures of autonomic arousal, facial activity, and self-reported affect were obtained during a potentially anxiety-arousing free-association task and during a number of control conditions, including an amusing film. Significant differences in baseline-corrected heart rate and self-reported anxiety as well as rated facial anxiety all indicated that repressors exhibited a discrepancy between low self-reported anxiety and high heart rate and facial anxiety; low anxious Ss reported an intermediate level of anxiety, although they showed low heart rate and facial anxiety; high-anxious Ss had consistently high values on all 3 variables; and the defensive high-anxious Ss showed an intermediate level of anxious responding. These group differences were specific to the task of freely associating to phrases of mixed (sexual, aggressive, neutral) content and to self-reported anxiety, indicating that they reflect individual differences in coping with anxiety. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)