Explainers as an Indicator of Defensive Attitude to Experienced Anxiety in Young Women Differing in Their Styles of Coping with Threatening Stimuli

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a frequency analysis of causal conjunctions and explainers in the speech of persons categorised as low-anxious, high-anxious, and repressors, selected according to the criteria of Weinberger et al. (1979). Ninety female students, assigned to three groups: high-anxious persons (n = 30), low-anxious persons (n = 30), and anxiety repressors (n = 30), gave a speech lasting several minutes concerning personality features that they liked or disliked in themselves. The results strongly confirmed the hypothesis that there are differences in the frequency of use of causal conjunctions and explainers between repressors, high-anxious, and low-anxious individuals. Their number is highest in the utterances of repressors and lowest in the utterances of low-anxious individuals. Our study demonstrates that the experiencing of anxiety does not in itself lead to an increase in the frequency of use of causal expressions. The key factor would appear to be a high level of defensiveness and absence of insight into one's emotional states, characteristic of repressors. This may lead to a need to rationalise and to seek possible causes for the state of anxiety, which is externalised linguistically through the use of a high number of causal expressions.

What are the affective meanings of words for individuals with a high level of trait anxiety?

“…Unlike in LA and MA, no correlations were found between the values attributed to the words and their level of arousal in the HA group. Generally speaking, these results are consistent with previous findings on the relationship between high level of trait anxiety and cognitive functioning (Obrębska and Zinczuk-Zielazna, 2017;Wisco and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010). High level of trait anxiety is associated with disruption of executive functions (Derakshan and Eysenck, 2009), which may be responsible for deficits in semantic memory (Gawda and Szepietowska, 2016), episodic memory (Zlomuzica et al, 2014), and working memory (Qi et al, 2014), as well as decision-making processes (Miu et al, 2008).…”

Style mówienia o zadowoleniu a wybrane cechy osobowości kobiet

“…Uzyskane wyniki mogą ponadto wskazywać na stosowanie przez badane kobiety silnych mechanizmów obronnych, zwłaszcza represji. Zależność tę potwierdzają dane z literatury mówiące o tym, że częstsze używanie partykuł, spójników i określeń dogmatycznych jest charakterystyczne nie tylko dla osób, które w sytuacjach zagrażających odczuwają wysoki poziom lęku, ale też dla osób stosujących mechanizmy wyparcia , 2017.…”