Related Experiment Videos
Dispositional and situational determinants of repression
M Mendolia1, J Moore, A Tesser
1Institute of Behavioral Research, University of Georgia, USA. pymm@umsvm]
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|April 1, 1996
Summary
Repressors are highly sensitive to emotional events but distance themselves when self-evaluation is threatened. This model explains repressive behavior by considering dispositional sensitivity and situational factors.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Personality Psychology
Background:
- Repression is a defense mechanism involving the unconscious exclusion of undesirable mental content.
- Existing models of repression often focus on either personality traits or social behaviors, but not both.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and test a two-factor model of repression incorporating both personality and social behavior.
- To identify the motivational and contextual factors underlying repressive distancing from emotional events.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Assessed cognitive attention to emotional stimuli in individuals with repressive personality traits.
- Experiments 2 and 3: Examined situational factors influencing psychological distancing from emotional events in repressors.
Main Results:
- Repressors exhibit hypersensitivity in cognitive attention to both positive and negative emotional events.
- Repressors distance themselves from emotional events when self-evaluation is threatened and distraction is available.
Conclusions:
- The proposed two-factor model integrates dispositional emotional sensitivity and situational moderators to explain repressive behavior.
- This model offers a more comprehensive understanding of repression by linking internal motivations with external contextual triggers.