REPRESSORS - WHAT DO THEY REPRESS AND HOW DO THEY REPRESS IT

This study examined the types of experiences that repressors repress and one mechanism that they use for doing so. Subjects were first asked to indicate whether they could recall experiencing each of 48 different (positive and negative) emotions. The experiences recalled by repressors were significantly more positive than those recalled by nonrepressors. This indicates that repressors have relatively poor memory for negative emotional experiences but relatively good memory for positive emotional experiences. Subjects were then given a surprise memory test for the words used to elicit the recall of these experiences. Repressors (relative to nonrepressors) recalled a significantly smaller proportion of negative emotional words that had not elicited the recall of an experience. This suggests that repressors tried less hard to recall experiences associated with these words; thus, repression may involve lowered effort in recalling past negative emotional experiences. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.