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

Towards a Cognitive and Neurobiological Model of Motivated Forgetting

“…Moreover, in the Unaided group, the negative control effect was signifi cantly larger for participants who reported distracting themselves with alternative thoughts (12%) compared to participants who reported not doing this (12% facilitation) (see also Hotta & Kawaguchi, 2009 ) . Hertel and colleagues have reported robust negative control effects with thought substitutes (Hertel & McDaniel, 2010 ;Joormann, Hertel, Lemoult, & Gotlib, 2009 ;LeMoult, Hertel, & Joorman, 2010 ) . Although thought substitutes do not always produce larger negative control effects than in the unaided group (Hertel & McDaniel, 2010 ) , the tendency, in our combined analysis (Fig.…”

“…Hertel and colleagues have reported robust negative control effects with thought substitutes (Hertel & McDaniel, 2010 ;Joormann, Hertel, Lemoult, & Gotlib, 2009 ;LeMoult, Hertel, & Joorman, 2010 ) . Although thought substitutes do not always produce larger negative control effects than in the unaided group (Hertel & McDaniel, 2010 ) , the tendency, in our combined analysis (Fig. 3 , right) was for thought substitutes to produce larger effects on average (13%, N = 262) than are produced in an uninstructed condition (7%, N = 1407) on Same Probe tests.…”

“…A number of studies have found negative control effects in which the trace to be suppressed was negative, including negative words (Depue et al, 2006 ;Hertel & McDaniel, 2010 ;Joormann et al, 2005 ;Joormann et al, 2009 ;LeMoult et al, 2010 ;Kim et al, 2007 ;Lambert et al, 2010. Murray, Muscatel, & Kensinger, 2011 and negative pictures ( Depue et al, 2007 ) .…”

Suppression-induced forgetting on a free-association test

“…Shivde and Anderson (2001) found RIF in the explicit recall of targets connected to the dominant meanings after participants had practised recalling targets connected to the weaker meanings. Hertel and McDaniel (2009) found SIF for targets that established emotionally negative meanings after participants suppressed those targets with or without the help of substitutes denoting benign meanings, although the substitutes exaggerated the effect for participants who scored high on a measure of repressive coping. In the case of an implicit freeassociation test, homographs have the additional advantage of providing another means of evaluating SIF, beyond the measure of exact target production.…”

“…The use of this screening procedure was informed by Hertel and McDaniel's (2009) finding that repressors produced superior below-baseline forgetting.…”