Repressive and defensive coping during fear and anger.

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between repressive and defensive coping styles and somatovisceral responses as well as emotion self-reports were investigated in 2 situational contexts conceived to induce fear and anger. Anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; L. Laux, P. Glanzmann, P. Schaffner, & C. D. Spielberger, 1981) × Defensiveness (Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale; D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960) × Emotion (fear, anger) moderated regression analyses revealed that compared with baseline during fear, defensiveness was related to a decrease in heart rate variability. Also during fear, repressive-defensive copers had lower self-reports of negative affect but showed higher behavioral negative affect (m. corrugator reactivity) than other participants. During anger, defensiveness was positively related to both diastolic blood pressure reactivity and m. zygomaticus reactivity. Additional analyses showed that emotional responses of repressivedefensive copers were strongly moderated by the situational context.The history of the repressive-defensive coping style began with the development of the Byrne Repression-Sensitization scale (see Bell & Byrne, 1978). This measure evolved from the perceptual defense literature (e.g., Eriksen, 1966) in which repressors were defined as individuals who have heightened recognition thresholds for anxiety-provoking stimuli. But soon it emerged that the Byrne scale had limited discriminant validity because of its high correlation with trait anxiety measures (e.g., Weinberger, Schwartz, & Davidson, 1979).The repressive coping research progressed with the development of the Marlowe-Crowne (MC) Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) that was originally constructed for the assessment of so-cially desirable responding as a response style. Within 4 years, however, Crowne and Marlowe (1964) recognized that their scale was primarily measuring a substantive individual difference dimension rather than a response bias. Since that time, a formidable body of research has demonstrated that high-MC scorers generally believe what they are reporting and attempt to behave accordingly (e.g., Derakshan & Eysenck, 1999;McCrae & Costa, 1983). However, this insight does not rule out that high-MC scorers can also exaggerate, cheat, and lie, if necessary, to ensure that others recognize their good character or to avoid social disapproval (e.g., Millham, 1974;Paulhus & John, 1998).The core motive behind the excessively agreeable and conforming behavior of high-MC scorers seems to be the maintenance of an idealized self-concept, particularly by the defensive avoidance of negative affect such as anxiety or anger (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964, pp. 150, 190) and the prevention of threat to self-esteem from anticipated social rejection (e.g.,

Intact implicit and reduced explicit memory for negative self-related information in repressive coping

“…A number of studies reported discrepancies between low self-reported anxiety and autonomic measures indicating objectively high physiological arousal in repressors (Asendorpf & Scherer, 1983;Barger, Kircher, & Croyle, 1997;Derakshan & Eysenck, 2001;Newton & Contrada, 1992;Pauls & Stemmler, 2003;Weinberger et al, 1979). This similarity between findings in memory and emotion studies implies that the explicitness with which sensitive information is asked for reduces both repressors' emotional experience and memory.…”

The suppressive power of positive thinking: Aiding suppression-induced forgetting in repressive coping

“…In this first attempt with the TNT paradigm, our use of a continuum approach (ISE) was motivated in part by the difficulty of carrying out the design with full counterbalancing within four groups, as well as by the literature on suppression and repressive coping that revealed no differences among the three categories of non-repressors (Barnier et al, 2004;Geraerts et al, 2006). In general, continuum methods, like the fourcategory method, have consistently demonstrated that repressors report low anxiety while simultaneously exhibiting high levels of physiological arousal (e.g., Coifman, Bonanno, Ray, & Gross, 2007;Pauls & Stemmler, 2003). On the other hand, Derakshan, Myers, Hansen, and O'Leary (2004) found that defensiveness alone predicted spontaneous, uninstructed suppression of thoughts about an emotionally negative film, regardless of anxiety levels.…”

Crta anksioznosti kao moderator efekta dve faze dentalne operacije na vagalnu aktivaciju

“…fear and anxiety evoked by the speech preparation paradigm, are followed by decreases in VT (Pauls & Stemmler, 2003). On the other hand, in research conducted by different authors (e.g.…”