Shifts in attention biases in response to acute pain induction: Examination of a model of "conversion" among repressors.

Unlike most people, those who are characterized by a repressive coping style report high levels of physical (sensory) pain but low levels of emotional distress (affective pain), which is a discrepancy that may suggest a “conversion” process. In two studies, we tested an attention allocation model, proposing that repressors direct attention away from threatening negative affective information and toward nonthreatening physical pain information during emotionally arousing (painful) situations. In Study 1, 84 participants underwent a cold pressor and then recovered. Repressors reported greater pain during recovery than low- and high-anxious participants, but they reported lower distress than high-anxious participants. Repressors reported significant and large discrepancies between high pain and low distress, whereas these differences were less pronounced for other groups. In Study 2, 77 participants underwent an ischemic pain task while performing a modified dot-probe task with sensory and negative affective pain words as stimuli. Repressors showed increasing biases away from affective pain words and toward sensory pain words as the pain task continued, whereas low- and high-anxious participants did not show these shifts in attention. The results support the notion that conversion among repressors may involve a process by which attention is directed away from emotional distress during noxious stimulation and is focused instead on sensory information from pain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recall of early experience and the repressive coping style.

Investigated recall of early experience and the repressive coping style by testing hypotheses concerning restricted access to negative childhood memories and eliciting accounts of quality of parenting received. Ss were 37 undergraduate women (aged 18–38 yrs). Repressors free recalled fewer negative childhood memories than nonrepressors, and the age of 1st negative memory for repressors was older both in free recall and cued recall. Repressors also took longer to retrieve negative childhood memories but not positive memories. Repressors' accounts of their childhoods were more likely to be characterized by paternal antipathy and indifference, and they were less likely to report an emotionally or physically close relationship with their fathers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking.

On the basis of the assumption that positive experiences enhance perceived ability to cope with the discomfort associated with negative performance feedback (NF), it was hypothesized that (1) positive experiences increase willingness to accept negative but useful feedback and that (2) individuals seek positive experiences before accepting NF. Exp 1 found that past success increased Ss' interest in unrelated NF. Exp 2 found that positive mood increased Ss' interest in NF. Exp 3 investigated the amount of time Ss spent reading about their past success while waiting for new feedback. When the new feedback was mandatory, the time Ss spent reading about their past success increased with the anticipated negativity of the new feedback. However, when the new feedback was optional, the time Ss spent reading about their past success was an inverted-U function of the anticipated negativity of the new feedback. Results are discussed in terms of self-control processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repression-sensitization and processing of favorable and adverse information

One hundred forty-two female Ss divided into repressors and sensitizers by their median score on the R-S scale received either a favorable or an unfavorable evaluation of themselves, both discrepant at a similar degree from their own self-evaluation. Sensitizers, in comparison to repressors, exhibited greater adoption of the negative evaluation and acceptance of its source, but less acceptance of the positive evaluation and its source. These results were explained as providing support for the contention that repressors and sensitizers differ in their willingness to assign negative vs. positive qualities to one's self and to endorse internal conflict rather than in their choice of defense mechanisms in the face of threatening information.     

A fourth empirically derived cluster of chronic pain patients based on the Multidimensional Pain Inventory: Evidence for repression within the dysfunctional group.

The authors proposed that chronic pain patients with repressive defenses are not represented in current 3-cluster solutions of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory and that such a group can be distinguished by using a measure of defensiveness together with subscales of the MPI. For 178 pain patients, hierarchical cluster analyses were performed on the MPI and Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Profile analysis of validation measures showed that repressors scored comparably with dysfunctional patients on somatic symptoms of depression, pain severity, and perceived disability but significantly higher on these factors than the adaptive copers. Repressors scored comparably with adaptive copers on cognitive-affective symptoms of depression, anxiety, and anger but significantly lower on these variables than dysfunctional patients. Repressors also reported greater pain severity and perceived disability relative to their reports of negative affect, whereas dysfunctional and adaptive coper groups exhibited no such disparities. Without a measure of defensiveness, the MPI may misclassify a distinct group of patients as dysfunctional, but who readily endorse physical symptoms yet report low levels of emotional distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repression-sensitization and medical diagnosis.

The transsituational consistency of trait measures can be demonstrated best through the establishment of relationships between personality test responses and nontest behaviors. The repression-sensitization scale shows promise as a correlate of both psychological disturbance and physiological malfunctioning. The association between repression-sensitization scale responses and medical diagnoses was investigated in 360 medical patients representing (a) 3 age levels (20-29, 40-49, and 60-69); (b) 3 repression-sensitization levels (repressors, neutrals, and sensitizers); and (c) both sexes, with 20 patients in each group. Repressors tended to have purely organic diagnoses, whereas sensitizers received diagnoses involving psychological components (p     

Self-disclosure and expectations for psychotherapy in repressors and sensitizers.

Identified 2 groups of 49 university students as repressors and sensitizers based on scores on Byrnes's Repression-Sensitization Scale. Ss completed the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire and a Likert-type scale rating dimensions of psychotherapy to assess effects of defensive orientation on expectations for a psychotherapy relationship. Repressors indicated significantly more willingness than sensitizers to self-disclose during the 1st 4 hrs of therapy. Repressors expected more planned than spontaneous activity by the therapist, felt therapist personality less important than sensitizers in facilitating change, and rated themselves significantly less likely than sensitizers to enter psychotherapy in the future. Results are discussed within the framework of repressing and sensitizing defensive styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repression and the inaccessibility of affective memories.

Examined 3 groups of Ss (repressors, low anxious, and high anxious) under 6 conditions of recall (general, happy, sad, anger, fear, and wonder). Ss were asked to recall personal experiences from childhood and to rate their current mood and the affective intensity of the memories. Repressors recalled significantly fewer negative memories than did low-anxious and high-anxious Ss and were substantially older at the time of the earliest negative memory recalled. Compared with low-anxious Ss, repressors also recalled fewer positive affective memories as well. This pattern of findings is consistent with the hypothesis that repression involves an inaccessibility to negative emotional memories and indicates further that repression is associated in some way with the suppression or inhibition of emotional experiences in general. The concept of repression as a process involving limited access to negative affective memories appears to be valid. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distribution of reading time when questions are asked about a restricted category of text information.

43 undergraduates read a text either with or without inserted questions. Although there was no overall reading time difference between the question or no-question groups, Ss who received inserted questions spent more time on the parts of the text that contained information of the type needed to answer the questions. Question groups performed better, relative to controls, on posttest items that repeated inserted questions and also on new posttest items from the same categories as the inserted questions. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of self-assessment and task performance: Does it pay to know the truth?

An integration of conceptions about attributional antecedents with those of attributional consequences is applied to achievement behavior. The model assumes realistic attributions to be functional. It was tested with a paradigm in which task performance is conceptualized as the sum of the performances on various subtasks requiring different abilities. In Study 1, participants who were induced to make realistic attributions spent more time on tasks for which they had demonstrated high ability than on tasks for which they had demonstrated low ability. This preference for tasks out of areas for which one possesses high ability was correlated with overall performance. Study 2 replicated these results and revealed better posttest performance for individuals with realistic feedback than for individuals with unrealistic feedback. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at defensive projection: thought suppression, accessibility, and biased person perception

It has long been assumed that people perceive in others qualities that they wish to deny in themselves, but empirical evidence for defensive projection is limited and controversial. A new model for projection is presented in this article. People might try to actively suppress thoughts about the possibility that they have undesirable personality traits, but it was hypothesized that this response to threat ultimately causes thoughts about the unwanted traits to become chronically accessible. As a result, those trait concepts will be used to interpret others' behavior. Studies 1-4 showed that those people who both avoid thinking about having threatening personality traits and deny possessing them (repressors) also readily infer those traits from others' behavior. Studies 5-6 provided experimental support for the model. Unfavorable traits were attributed to participants, who, when they were asked or predisposed to not think about the traits, subsequently projected them onto someone else.     

"Repression-Sensitization and Medical Diagnosis": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Mark S. Schwartz, Neal E. Krupp, and Donn Byrne (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1971[Dec], 78[3], 286-291). In Table 3 the number of female repressors in the 60-69 age group, with a purely organic diagnosis, should be 16 instead of 6. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1972-09554-001.) The transsituational consistency of trait measures can be demonstrated best through the establishment of relationships between personality test responses and nontest behaviors. The repression-sensitization scale shows promise as a correlate of both psychological disturbance and physiological malfunctioning. The association between repression-sensitization scale responses and medical diagnoses was investigated in 360 medical patients representing (a) 3 age levels (20-29, 40-49, and 60-69); (b) 3 repression-sensitization levels (repressors, neutrals, and sensitizers); and (c) both sexes, with 20 patients in each group. Repressors tended to have purely organic diagnoses, whereas sensitizers received diagnoses involving psychological components (p     

Repression and the inaccessibility of affective memories.

Fundamental to the concept of repression is the proposition that repression serves to keep painful, unpleasant experiences out of consciousness or awareness. If this is indeed true, then individuals who characteristically use repression as a defensive strategy should have less access to emotional memories, especially those of negative, unpleasant events. The three studies presented here address this proposition. Repressors, operationally defined by a pattern of low anxiety and high defensiveness, displayed a limited accessibility to personal, real-life affective memories that was particularly pronounced for fear and self-consciousness experiences. Furthermore, recall of emotional experiences of self versus other revealed that the effects of repression were specific to emotional experiences of the self. The overall pattern of findings suggests that repression may be motivated, in particular, by affective experiences that focus attention on the self in a threatening or evaluative way. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of contingent and noncontingent feedback and subject expectancies on electoencephalogram biofeedback training.

80 undergraduates either received auditory feedback contingent on their production of alpha or they received noncontingent feedback. In addition, Ss were led to expect either a positive or a negative experience. Ss who received contingent feedback produced significantly more alpha than Ss who received noncontingent feedback, but the type of feedback did not seem related to mood. Instead, Ss led to expect a positive experience reported significant reductions in anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improving the effectiveness of computer-delivered personalized drinking feedback interventions for college students.

This study evaluated methods of enhancing college students' retention of information provided to them in a computer-delivered personalized drinking feedback intervention and whether enhanced retention reduced alcohol consumption during the two-week period following the intervention. Participants were 98 college students who reported at least one heavy drinking episode in the past two weeks. After participating in an online, personalized drinking feedback intervention, students were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: 1) typical, in which they were simply sent home, 2) reading, in which they were asked to spend the next 20 minutes re-reading the feedback, and 3) recall, in which they were asked to spend the next 20 minutes writing down as much of the information from the feedback as they could remember. Two weeks following the intervention, participants completed a recall test and provided information on their alcohol use during the previous two weeks. Results indicated that participants in the reading and recall conditions retained more of the feedback information than did participants in the typical condition. In addition, participants in the reading and recall conditions reported reduced alcohol consumption in the two-week period following the intervention, compared to those in the typical condition. Information retention partially mediated the effects of the reading and recall conditions on drinking outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-perception of humor: Evidence for discounting and augmentation effects.

Self-perception theory (D. J. Bem, 1972) implies that enjoyment of humorous stimuli is inferred by taking into account external factors affecting overt mirth. As a test of this logic, 60 women read 2 equally funny sets of jokes. A laugh track was played in their headphones for 1 of the 2 sets of jokes. Although the laugh track had no impact on Ss' mirth, Ss were told that it would facilitate, inhibit, or not affect smiling and laughter. As predicted, in a later free-time period when Ss could read the books from which the jokes came, Ss who were told the laugh track increased mirth spent most time reading the book whose jokes had not been accompanied by laughter (a discounting effect), whereas Ss who were told the laugh track decreased mirth spent most time reading the book whose jokes had been accompanied by laughter (an augmentation effect); Ss who were told the laugh track did not affect mirth read the 2 books equally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuroticism and disclosure reciprocity.

32 college males with either normal or neurotic MMPI profiles participated in a dyadic interaction via telephone with a confederate who disclosed at either a high or low level of intimacy. Following the confederate's disclosure, Ss disclosed as long and as intimately as they cared to. Ratings of Ss' disclosures revealed that (a) normal Ss exposed to a high-disclosing confederate spent significantly more time in intimate disclosure than those exposed to a low-disclosing confederate and (b) neurotic Ss spent very little time in intimate self-disclosure, regardless of the level of disclosure they received from a confederate. This failure of neurotic Ss to reciprocate highly intimate disclosure is examined via a model that views appropriate self-disclosure as requiring several intra- and interpersonal skills. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control and information in the intrapersonal sphere: An extension of cognitive evaluation theory.

Extended findings that support cognitive evaluation theory to intrapersonal processes by exploring the effects of informational vs controlling feedback, when self-selected and administered vs other-administered, and in conditions of task-involvement (intended to create an informational orientation in relation to the activity) vs ego-involvement (intended to create a controlling orientation in relation to the activity). 128 undergraduates working on a hidden figures task received either an ego- or task-involving induction and then a series of 3 puzzle problems for which half of the Ss received informational feedback and the other half controlling feedback. Half the Ss had the feedback self-administered, and half had it administered by the experimenter. After puzzle-solving, Ss were left alone with additional puzzles and magazines and were observed to see if they worked on the puzzles. Finally, Ss completed a questionnaire assessing their interest and attitudes toward the target activity. Results confirm that controlling feedback, whether self- or other administered, undermined intrinsic motivation relative to task-involvement. Results are discussed in terms of the application of cognitive evaluation theory to intrapersonal processes and self-control theories. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching reading to disabled readers with language disorders: a controlled evaluation of synthetic speech feedback

In a long-term study two groups of language and reading impaired students (N = 15 + 15) were reading with the aid of segmented speech-feedback in a computerized program. One group received feedback that was simultaneously segmented visually and auditorily into syllables, the other received feedback by letter names. In both groups subjects were expected to synthesize segments into words and to compare their synthesis to whole word feed-back subsequently provided by the computer. They worked for half a lesson (approximately 20 minutes) a day for a total of 40 days. During this period the experiment groups progressed more in reading than a control group of age and reading-level-matched students (N = 35) who received traditional remedial instruction. The group in the syllable condition gained slightly more in non-word reading and in syllable segmentation than did the letter group. Differences in gains in reading abilities were not explained by differences in age, but to some extent by initial level of phoneme and syllable awareness. Future applications of the speech-feedback system are discussed.     

Alcohol consumption as a self-handicapping strategy in women.

Assessed whether women self-handicap with alcohol consumption prior to engaging in a social evaluation task, which may be more relevant to their self-esteem than the intellectual tasks used in past self-handicapping studies on substance use. 113 women (aged 19–32 yrs), who were evaluated as normal drinkers, performed either a solvable or an insolvable social judgment task and then received either success feedback or no feedback. Ss received access to alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while awaiting a retest. The study terminated before the retest. The self-handicapping hypothesis that noncontingent success would produce relatively greater alcohol consumption was not supported. Regardless of feedback, insolvable test Ss consumed more alcohol than did solvable test Ss. Findings suggest that the hypothesis may be limited as a general model of alcohol consumption in both sexes. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)