REPRESSIVE EMOTIONAL DISCRETENESS AFTER FAILURE

The relationship between coping dispositions and emotional responses a fter failure in an anagram task was examined. Previous research indica ted that only repressers' nondominant emotions were less intense compa red to nonrepressers', whereas the dominant emotion was of equal inten sity. Using an experimental design in which emotions were measured as they were actually felt, the authors were able to demonstrate that thi s effect, called repressive emotional discreteness, also is apparent d uring an emotional event. Compared to nonrepressers, repressers report ed roughly the same amount of guilt, which was the dominant emotion af ter failure, but they showed lower self-rated fear, sadness, and hosti lity. No differential effects were observed regarding positive emotion s after success, indicating that repressive discreteness is restricted to negative emotions. The implications of these findings for explaini ng the mechanism underlying repression are discussed.