Although thought suppression is a popular form of mental control, research has indicated that it can be counterproductive, helping assure the very state of mind one had hoped to avoid. This chapter reviews the research on suppression, which spans a wide range of domains, including emotions, memory, interpersonal processes, psychophysiological reactions, and psychopathology. The chapter considers the relevant methodological and theoretical issues and suggests directions for future research.

We propose that people with negative self-views are rejected because they gravitate to partners who view them unfavorably. In relation to nondepressed college students (n = 28), depressives (n = 13) preferred interaction partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 1). Similarly, in relation to nondepressives (n = 106), depressives (n = 10) preferred friends or dating partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 2). Dysphorics (n = 6) were more inclined to seek unfavorable feedback from their roommates than were nondepressives (n = 16); feedback-seeking activities of dysphorics were also associated with later rejection (Study 3). Finally, people with negative self-views (n = 37) preferentially solicited unfavorable feedback, although receiving such feedback made them unhappy, in comparison with people with positive self-views (n = 42; Study 4). It seems a desire for self-verification compels people with negative self-views to seek unfavorable appraisals.

In three experiments we examined depressed individuals' mental control abilities and strategies. Experiment 1 revealed that although depressed college students were initially successful in suppressing negative material, they eventually experienced a resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts. Analysis of subjects' stream-of-consciousness reports indicated that this resurgence was associated with the use of negative thoughts as distracters from the unwanted item. In Experiment 2 depressed subjects acknowledged that positive distracters were more effective than negative ones in suppressing negative thoughts. This acknowledgement suggests that depressed subjects in Experiment 1 did not deliberately focus on negative distracters but that those thoughts automatically occurred because they were highly accessible. Experiment 3 demonstrated that depressed subjects' use of positive distracters could be increased somewhat when we provided such distracters and made them easily accessible. Taken together, the findings suggest that depression involves an enhanced accessibility of interconnected negative thoughts that can undermine mental control efforts.

This research tested the idea that a cognitive vulnerability to depression can be concealed by thought suppression and revealed when cognitive demands undermine mental control. Depressive, at-risk, and nondepressive participants unscrambled sentences that could from either positive or depressive statements. Half of the participants also received a cognitive load. The results indicated that without a load, at-risk participants showed little evidence of depressive thinking, producing a similar rate of positive statements as did nondepressive individuals and a lower percentage of negative statements than did depressive participants. However, the cognitive load caused an increase in at-risk participants' production of negative statements, revealing a previously undetected tendency toward negative thinking that made them resemble depressive participants. As predicted, this effect was especially pronounced among individuals who routinely engaged in thought suppression.

This study investigated the possible relationship between negative processing biases and subsequent depression. The Scrambled Sentences Test (SST), a measure of processing bias, was administered to a large sample of undergraduates. Participants also completed self-report measures of thought suppression tendencies, current level of depression, and lifetime worst-depression symptoms. High scores on the SST, reflecting a negative processing bias, predicted depression symptoms measured 4 to 6 weeks later, even after controlling for concurrent and past depression. The SST was administered both with and without cognitive load to all participants. The SST with load predicted subsequent depression for both men and women. The SST without load predicted depression for women only. The SST difference score, a measure of the change in scores between the no-load and load conditions, was a significant predictor of subsequent depression for men but not women. Among men, the combination of high thought suppression with either high SST-load scores or high SST difference scores proved to be a particularly strong indicator of vulnerability to subsequent depression.

Swann, Wenzlaff, Krull, and Pelham (1992) suggested that depressed and dysphoric persons verify their self-conceptions by seeking rather negative appraisals. Hooley and Richters (1992) and Alloy and Lipman (1992) have worried that (a) idiosyncratic features of Swann et al.'s participants and design may have produced their effects and (b) Swann et al. presented no evidence that self-verification strivings are motivated. We address these issues empirically. Study 1 showed that 20 dysphoric participants preferred interacting with a person who appraised them unfavorably over participating in another study, in comparison with 30 nondysphorics. Study 2 revealed that 26 dysphoric persons responded to feedback that challenged their negative self-view by working to reaffirm their low self-esteem, in comparison with 47 nondysphorics. These findings support the notion that at some level depressed and dysphoric persons want rather negative appraisals.

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Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects that incriminating innuendo delivered by media sources may have on audience impressions of innuendo targets. The first study demonstrated innuendo effects by showing that audience impressions of a target were swayed in a negative direction by exposure to a prototypical innuendo headline, the incriminating question (e.g., Is P a criminal?")-A similar but substantially weaker effect was observed for an incriminating denial (e.g., "P is not a criminal"). The second study showed, somewhat unexpectedly, that although variations in source credibility affected the persuasiveness of direct incriminating assertions, they had appreciably less impact on the persuasiveness of innuendos. In the third study, the inferences an audience makes about the motives and knowledge of an innuendo source were investigated for their possible mediation of the innuendo effect. This analysis complemented the findings of the second study, in that audience inferences about the sensationalistic or muckraking qualities of the source were found to have a negligible influence on acceptance of innuendo from the source. The analysis also revealed, however, that audiences exposed to innuendo commonly infer that the source is attempting to avoid charges of libel, and that this inference can reduce audience receptiveness to innuendo communication.The power of the press to change political recognized in some form for many years, and events has been noted by many social com-a broad matrix of libel legislation and jumentators. In the recent political history of dicial decision has arisen to protect the methe United States, a particular form of this dia's targets from undue incrimination power has been highlighted by a series of (Phelps & Hamilton, 1978). However, this remarkably similar incidents. Beginning with protective barrier seems permeable. When Watergate and continuing with Koreagate, damaging personal information is disguised the Bert Lance affair, and the like, it has in hints, presuppositions, questions, qualifibeen demonstrated that the media can in-cations, and other indirect but legal forms fluence the course of politics by conveying of reporting, its influence emerges nonethedamaging information about people in the less. The present research was designed to news. Of course, this possibility has been explore this innuendo effect in impression formation. This research was supported in part by a grant from An innuendo about a person can be dethe Trinity University Faculty Research and Develop-fined in terms of two critical features. The ment Council. Experiment 2 is based on a Master's thecomrnun ications that media consumers typsis submitted to Trinity University by R.