The Attributional Style of Repressive Individuals

Repressive Coping and Threat-Avoidance: An Idiographic Stroop Study

It has been found that people unintentionally direct attention to threatening stimuli, but it has been suggested that people with a repressive coping style can inhibit that automatic response. Support for this hypothesis is mixed, however. Consistent with other investigations of this issue, the two studies reported here used a variant of the Stroop procedure. Unlike past studies, though, threatening stimuli were identified idiographically. In line with the assumption that repressive coping is motivated by self-protection, self-concept threats were assessed separately for each participant. Repressors and control participants were presented with these threatening personality traits (i.e., traits they would least want to possess) and also with unfavorable but nonthreatening traits (some other participant’s threatening traits). They named the word colors as quickly as possible. In both studies, only repressors failed to display Stroop interference effects when presented with threatening stimuli. Results indicate that repressors selectively avoid attending to threat-related stimuli.

Which symptoms matter? Self-report and observer discrepancies in repressors and high-anxious women with metastatic breast cancer

Clinicians working with cancer patients listen to them, observe their behavior, and monitor their physiology. How do we proceed when these indicators do not align? Under self-relevant stress, non-cancer repressors respond with high arousal but report low anxiety; the high-anxious report high anxiety but often have lower arousal. This study extends discrepancy research on repressors and the high-anxious to a metastatic breast cancer sample and examines physician rating of coping. Before and during a Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), we assessed affect, autonomic reactivity, and observers coded emotional expression from TSST videotapes. We compared non-extreme (N = 40), low-anxious (N = 16), high-anxious (N = 19), and repressors (N = 19). Despite reported low anxiety, repressors expressed significantly greater Tension or anxiety cues. Despite reported high anxiety, the high-anxious expressed significantly greater Hostile Affect rather than Tension. Physicians rated both groups as coping significantly better than others. Future research might productively study physician-patient interaction in these groups.

The importance of the repressive coping style: findings from 30 years of research

During the last three decades there has been substantial research exploring the repressive coping style as defined by Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson. As "repressors," who score low on trait anxiety and high on defensiveness, account for up to 50% of certain populations, they are an essential group for psychologists to study. However, there are methodological issues in identifying repressors as well as considerable evidence that repressors avoid negative self-relevant information. Possible methods of addressing these difficulties are discussed in this review. Importantly, there is a body of evidence linking repressive coping and poor physical health, including heart disease and cancer. However, some preliminary findings suggest that repressors compared to non-repressors may be better at health behaviors that they perceive as under their personal control. This needs more extensive investigation as such behaviors are only one aspect of health and other factors may contribute to repressors' poor physical health. Possible future directions of research are discussed including: the need for systematic empirical research of a new theory of repressive coping--the Vigilance-Avoidance Theory--more longitudinal health studies, and an in-depth exploration of the physiological mechanisms which may underlie repressive coping.

Effects of appraisal and coping on the neuroendocrine response to extreme stress

Although many people are exposed to extreme stress, only some of them develop psychobiological disturbances that can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other posttrauma psychopathology. This paper examines the effects of different types of appraisal and coping to find clues to how individuals differ in their neuroendocrine responses to extreme stress. It proposes a conceptual model for components of the adult response to stressors. Threat appraisal and defensive coping may play crucial roles in determining the neuroendocrine response to trauma with potential mental health consequences, particularly PTSD.

Predicting the willingness to disclose childhood sexual abuse from measures of repressive coping and dissociative tendencies

Although it is generally agreed that the verbal disclosure of past childhood sexual abuse (CSA) experiences can be beneficial, CSA survivors are often reluctant to reveal such experiences. Bonanno et al. found that women with documented CSA histories who did not disclose abuse when provided an opportunity to do so were more likely to show nonverbal expressions of shame and polite smiling, relative to disclosing CSA survivors or nonabused controls. Disclosing CSA survivors, in contrast, showed greater facial expressions of disgust. The current study extended this paradigm by showing that among the same participants, CSA disclosure was associated with chronic dissociative experiences, whereas nondisclosure was associated with repressive coping. Further, repressive coping and dissociative experiences were inversely related and showed opposite patterns of facial expressions and adjustment. Repressors expressed greater negative and positive emotion and were relatively better adjusted, whereas dissociators expressed little emotion and had relatively poorer adjustment.