Relationship between repression-sensitization and word frequency estimates for pleasant and unpleasant words

College students (45 females and 12 males) estimated the frequency of pleasant and unpleasant English words. 28 subjects estimated how often they, personally, had seen the words (Personal condition), and 29 subjects estimated how often a "language expert" had encountered the words (Kucera-Francis condition). Byrne's Repression-Sensitization scores were obtained for all subjects. In both conditions repressors judged pleasant words to be more frequent, and sensitizers judged unpleasant words to be more frequent (p less than .01). The results may clarify some contradictions in the literature on frequency estimation and may help to explain the relationship between repression-sensitization and perceptual defense/vigilance.