Chronic Thought Suppression

ABSTRACT We conducted several tests of the idea that an inclination toward thought suppression is associated with obsessive thinking and emotional reactivity. Initially, we developed a self-report measure of thought suppression through successive factor-analytic procedures and found that it exhibited acceptable internal consistency and temporal stability. This measure, the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI), was found to correlate with measures of obsessional thinking and depressive and anxious affect, to predict signs of clinical obsession among individuals prone toward obsessional thinking, to predict depression among individuals motivated to dislike negative thoughts, and to predict failure of electrodermal responses to habituate among people having emotional thoughts. The WBSI was inversely correlated with repression as assessed by the Repression-Sensitization Scale, and so taps a trait that is quite unlike repression as traditionally conceived.     

Origins of Ruminative Thought: Trauma, Incompleteness, Nondisclosure, and Suppression

The purpose of this paper is to discuss theories of the origin of ruminative thought. We begin by providing a working definition of rumination, separating rumination from other forms of cognitive activity and distinguishing ruminations from ordinary memories. Then, we review what we believe are the major categories of theory that attempt to account for the existence and nature of rumination. These include theories of traumatization, incompleteness, nondisclosure, and thought suppression. Ruminations may originate for a number of reasons, but it seems they may continue because of our attempts to control them. Evidence from studies on thought suppression suggests that the suppression of unwanted thoughts may in fact fuel the very emotions and thoughts we are trying to avoid. Thought suppression may set up a state in which we not only increase the amount we think about an unwanted thought, but potentially also sharpen our emotional reaction to those thoughts.     

Inner light

Neural impulses from the senses to the brain convey information, not sensation. The direct electrical stimulation of the cortex produces sensations. Hence, such sensations are evoked in the brain, and not received from the senses, nor from the outside world through the senses. More specifically, the experience of light is evoked in the brain and not received from the eyes. Consequently, the born blind, too, would experience light in response to electrical brain stimulation. The luminosity of light is not a property of electromagnetic radiation. If the experience of light is private, then so are the visual observations it makes possible.     

You and me as she and he: The meaning of gender-related concepts in other- and self-perception

This study compares and contrasts the use of gender-related concepts in other-and self-perception. The schematic use and stereotypic and affective meanings of feminine and masculine were derived from hierarchical classes analysis (HICLAS) of participants' (N = 72; 50 females, 22 males, 54% white) ratings of self and significant others. The study reveals that people use these concepts differently in their perception of others than in their perception of self. In addition, the meaning of masculine and feminine constructed by these participants differs significantly from their traditional definitions. Finally, being feminine is evaluated more positively than being masculine in the perception of others, while the ego protective function of gender leads participants to evaluate their own gender's features most positively in self-perception.This article was presented at the 1993 Eastern Psychological Association, Washington, DC, April 1993. The collection of the data reported in this paper was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH40871-03/04. We thank the Institute for its support. We also thank the participants in this study for sharing their lives with us. Finally we would like to thank Richard Ashmore, Rae Carlson, and Basil Englis for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

IMPLICIT MEMORY IN AMNESIC PATIENTS:

Abstract— Amnesic patients generally exhibit spared priming effects on implicit memory tasks despite poor explicit memory In a previous study, we demonstrated normal auditory priming in amnesic patients on an identification-in-noise test in which the magnitude of priming is independent of whether the speaker's voice is the same or different at study and test In the present experiment, we examined auditory priming on a filter identification test in which the magnitude of priming in control subjects is higher when the speaker's voice is the same at study and test than when it is different Amnesic patients, by contrast, failed to exhibit more priming in a same-voice condition than in a different-voice condition Voice-specific priming may depend on a memory system that is impaired in amnesia     

Brief report: Effects of informational feedback on aluminum can recycling

The impact of informational feedback on the depositing of aluminum cans in recycling receptacles at a medium-sized university was investigated. Informational signs were placed over 20-recycling receptacles in three academic buildings. Each informational sign was placed at eye level, with the number of aluminum cans deposited for recycling during the previous week displayed in red digits. A 65% increase in the number of aluminum cans deposited in recycling receptacles with the informational signs was observed. Furthermore, removal of the informational signs was observed to reliably decrease the number of aluminum cans deposited. These results are discussed in the context of employing feedback to increase environmental protection behaviors.     

Auditory Priming for Nonverbal Information: Implicit and Explicit Memory for Environmental Sounds

Three experiments examined repetition priming for meaningful environmental sounds (e.g., clock ticking, tooth brushing, toilet flushing, etc.) in a sound stem identification paradigm using brief sound cues. Prior encoding of target sounds together with their associated names facilitated subsequent identification of sound stems relative to nonstudied controls. In contrast, prior exposure to names alone in the absence of the environmental sounds did not prime subsequent sound stem identification performance at all (Experiments 1 and 3). Explicit and implicit memory were dissociated such that sound stem cued recall was higher following semantic than nonsemantic encoding, whereas sound priming was insensitive to manipulations of depth encoding (Experiments 2 and 3). These results extend the findings of long-term repetition priming into the auditory nonverbal domain and suggest that priming for environmental sounds is mediated primarily by perceptual processes.     

Reply to William R. Ferrell’s paper “A model for realism of confidence judgments: Implications for underconfidence in sensory discrimination”

Ferrell’s decision-variable partition model and our subjective distance model belong to the same family of Thurstonial models. The subjective distance model is limited to sensory discrimination with the method of constant stimuli and rooted in such notions as discriminal dispersion and sense distance. Ferrell’s model is intended to be wider in scope and to apply to both cognitive and sensory tasks. Both models need supplementary assumptions to predict calibration phenomena. The point of departure for us is the fact that the model predicts under-confidence under “guessing” and the empirical finding that people are about 100% correct when they report “absolutely certain.” Ferrell makes assumptions about cutoffs on the decision variable. The respondent is assumed to adjust or not adjust cutoffs according to “cues to difficulty.” We disagree with Ferrell’s claim that the hard-easy effect is explained by the respondent’s failure to adjust cutoffs sufficiently when there is a change in level of difficulty, and argue that this amounts to little more than a translation of the hard-easy effect into the lingua of Ferrell’s decision-variable partition model. Our argument is that the hard-easy effect is a consequence of the post hoc division of items according to solution probability. In addition, error variance may contribute to regression effects that enlarge the hard-easy effect. Finally, in contrast to Ferrell’s position, we regard inference (cognitive uncertainty) and discrimination (sensory uncertainty) as different psychological processes. An understanding of calibration in these two areas requires separate models.     

The development of aggression in toddlers: A study of low-income families

The effort by developmental psychopathologists to understand the etiology of antisocial behavior has resulted in several significant findings. First, aggressive behavior is highly stable from early childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Second, parental factors including rearing practices and parental psychopathology, are correlated with childhood behavior problems. It was the aim of the present study to examine the correlates and stability of aggressive behavior in a sample of toddlers from low income families. Eight-nine mother-child dyads (52 boys and 37 girls) were observed in laboratory assessments when the child was 18- and 24-months old. Frequency and pervasiveness of aggression were coded from videotapes. Familial criminality, maternal depressive symptomatology, child noncompliance, and difficult child temperament were examined as contributors to the prediction of aggression in toddlers. Stability of aggression was moderate, especially for aggression occurring in low-stress situations. While there were few sex differences in the frequency and stability of aggression, there were marked differences in the correlates and predictors of aggression. Gender-specific, interactional models of the development of aggression are proposed.This study was supported by grants to Daniel Shaw and Joan Vondra from the following organizations within the University of Pittsburgh: the Mental Health Clinical Research Center for Affective Disorders, the Office of Child Development, the School of Education in conjunction with the Buhl Foundation, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Portions of this paper were presented at the Meeting for the Society for Life History Research, Philadelphia, April 1992. The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Julie Alley, Jodi Chusta, and Kevin Cosley for their invaluable assistance in behavioral coding. Special thanks is given to the mothers and children who participated in this research.