Extension of the Repression-Sensitization Hypothesis to Success and Failure Experience

Abstract

Byrne's (1961) R-S scale was administered to 244 university students. Those scoring in the 75th percentile or above were designated sensitizers; those in the 25th percentile and below, repressers. Forty Ss were selected from each of these two groups and were further sub-divided to form success and failure conditions. Ss then received a success or failure experience followed by a tachistoscopic task where eight critical words (words associated with the tests) and eight neutral words (words not associated) were presented. The following hypotheses were supported. (a) Repressers had higher thresholds than sensitizers for critical words under the failure condition. (b) There was no significant difference between repressers' and sensitizers' thresholds under the success condition. (c) Thresholds to neutral words, although following the same trend as critical words in the four groups, did not differ significantly for repressers and sensitizers under either the success or failure condition.

Stress and affiliation: A utility theory.

“…The main difference between repressors and sensitizers is the mode of response to stressful stimuli. Whereas repressors tend to repress, deny, and avoid threatening stimuli by avoiding perceiving, talking, and even thinking about stressful stimuli, sensitizers tend to display the opposite pattern of behavior (e.g., Byrne, 1964;Gleason, 1969;Haley, 1974;Hare, 1966;Tempone, 1964). Repressors are more eager to make a good impression on others and to score higher on social desirability (e.g., Byrne, 1964;Byrne, Golightly, & Sheffield, 1965;Feder, 1967;Silber & Grebstein, 1964), are less anxious (e.g., Byrne, 1964;Weinstein, Averill, Opton, & Lazarus, 1968), and are evaluated as better adjusted individuals (Rofe & Lewin, 1979).…”

Repression-sensitization response mode and verbal avoidance.

“…According to Byrne (1961), the repressionsensitization (R-S) trait meets this criterion, in that it provides a way of classifying individuals according to their typical mode of response to threatening stimulus events: repressers are held to utilize responses of denial and avoidance, while sensitizers, at the other extreme, employ responses of intellectualization and approach; and, in fact, a variety of behaviors have been found to distinguish between groups classified as sensitizers and repressers in ways that are at least in no contradiction to the idea of an approachavoidance dichotomy (e.g., Lazarus & Alfert, 1964;Merbaum & Badia, 1967;Tempone, 1964).…”

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

“…Byrne (1964) concluded that the bulk of experimental evidence justifies conceptualizing extreme scores from the scale as reflecting equally pathological yet qualitatively different behavioral dispositions for coping with threat: 5s with low scores (repressers) are characterized by the use of avoidance-denial techniques, while high scorers (sensitizers) use intellectualapproach techniques. Byrne's interpretation of the relationship between extreme scores and defensive mode has received some empirical support (Lazarus & Alfert, 1964;Tempone, 1964), but other evidence supports a linear relationship between R-S scores and adjustment, where repressers are viewed simply as lower in defensiveness and less pathological than sensitizers who are predisposed toward anxiety (Joy, 1963;Tempone & Lamb, 1967).…”