Effects of task familiarity on stress responses of repressors and sensitizers.

Abstract

Lake Forest College R. S. Lazarus's theory of coping was used to investigate appraisal and reappraisal of threat in repressers and sensitizers. Two indexes of stress, self-report ratings of affect and palmar skin conductance, were measured prior to performance on a reaction time task, after one-third of the task was completed and after two-thirds of the task was completed. Results of the first period replicated earlier findings that skin conductance does not differentiate repression-sensitization (R-S) groups and that discrepancy scores between skin conductance and self-reported "tenseness" show repressers to be relatively higher on the former, while sensitizers are relatively higher on the latter. Ratings of "tenseness," "excitedness," and "interest" converged for R-S groups across periods. It was suggested that uncertainty associated with the initial period created threat and the subsequent characteristic defensive patterns in R-S groups, but that increased familiarity with the task and external feedback minimized prior dispositional differences. Perhaps R-S is best predictive of behavior in circumstances characterized by few external cues and high threat appraisal.

Preparation to reexperience a stressful medical examination: Effect of repetitious videotape exposure and coping style.

“…But few studies have compared the reactions of repressors and sensitizers to repeated stressors. Pagano (1973) compared repressors and sensitizers on a choice-reaction-time task with instructions stressing performance. Davidson and Bobey (1970) compared repressors and sensitizers on pain tolerance.…”

“…However, on the second trial, the pain tolerance of repressors dropped, whereas the tolerance of sensitizers tended to increase. Pagano (1973) compared repressors and sensitizers on a choice-reaction-time task with instructions stressing performance. Initially, sensitizers expressed greater tension than repressors.…”

Effect of cognitive appraisal on d' and response bias to experimental stress.

“…Thus, the tendency on the part of repressers to report less stress under certain conditions (cf. Lazarus & Alfert, 1964;Pagano, 1973) would seem to be related to the amount of stress "experienced" rather than distortion of the actual amount of stress in the verbal report.…”

“…environment has been associated with reduced verbal acknowledgement of subjective stress without other indications, usually physiological, of an absence of stress (cf. Lazarus & Alfert, 1964;Pagano, 1973;Weinstein, Averill, Opton, & Lazarus, 1968). Lazarus (1967), for one, has noted that the coping strategy of denial may be an important source of disagreement among stress indexes.…”

The repression-sensitization variable and self-reported emotional arousal: Effects of stress and instructional set.

“…No difference was found between female repressors and sensitizers in the Merbaum and Badia study. Such evidence that the repression-sensitization dimension fails to conform to the conception of psychological defense mechanisms originally posed makes the frequent reference to the measure within a context of psychodynamic processes and "coping strategies for threat" somewhat surprising (e.g., Pogano, 1973;Sappington, 1975;Scarpetti, 1973;Weinstein, Averill, Opton, & Lazarus, 1968).…”