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Effects of suppression and appraisals on thought frequency and distress
- Source :
- Behaviour research and therapy. 47(12)
- Publication Year :
- 2009
-
Abstract
- Cognitive theories of obsessions highlight appraisals of personal significance and thought suppression in the development and maintenance of intrusive thoughts. The current study examined the role of personal significance within the context of a thought suppression paradigm. The primary aim was to examine whether suppression would have differential effects for target thoughts appraised as personally meaningful versus relatively unimportant. A blasphemous thought served as the target thought, and highly religious and nonreligious participants were recruited. Participants completed a two-interval thought suppression task; during interval 1 they were randomly assigned to suppress or not suppress the target thought and during interval 2, all participants were given "do not suppress" instructions. Suppression resulted in sustained frequency of thoughts in contrast to the decline in thought frequency observed for non-suppression. Differential effects of suppression were found across the two groups. Moreover, suppression was associated with increased negative mood and anxiety. Results suggest that suppression of personally meaningful thoughts is a counterproductive strategy.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Adolescent
Repression, Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Context (language use)
Anxiety
Developmental psychology
Thinking
medicine
Humans
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Thought suppression
Cognition
Social Control, Informal
medicine.disease
Intrusive thought
Negative mood
Religion
Psychiatry and Mental health
Clinical Psychology
Distress
Affect
Female
medicine.symptom
Psychology
Anxiety disorder
Stress, Psychological
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 1873622X
- Volume :
- 47
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Behaviour research and therapy
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....0f8ccaf08e77cb8df8a10bda38d50c4e