STYLES OF INHIBITING EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION - DISTINGUISHING REPRESSIVECOPING FROM IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Although repressors' avoidant coping style seems genuinely defensive, an alternative hypothesis is that repressors are actually distress-pro ne impression managers who provide ''socially desirable'' verbal repor ts. To establish discriminant validity, 30 repressors and 30 self-iden tified impression managers participated in a timed phrase-completion t ask. Half of the subjects were encouraged to be emotionally expressive and half to be restrained. Repressors were highly defensive regardles s of the social demand, and impression managers only managed to match the repressors' level of distancing during the first segment of the in hibitive condition. Repressors were as physi ologically reactive when they made defensive claims as they were when they made more negative d isclosures to others. Moreover, when confronted, only the repressors d enied that their heart rate elevations might be related to their emoti onal responses. These findings suggest that repressors' limited emotio nal expression is more determined by defenses against awareness of aff ect than by self-presentational concerns.