INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN PRIMING AND MEMORY EFFECTS OF THREAT-RELATED STIMULI - THE INFLUENCE OF COGNITIVE AVOIDANCE AND VIGILANCE

This study examined the influence of dispositional coping strategies ( cognitive avoidance, vigilance) on priming and memory effects of emoti onal stimuli. In the first phase of the study participants performed a lexical decision task that involved threat-related and neutral words. Subsequently, a previously unannounced recognition memory test for a subset of the words presented during the first phase was carried out. Repressers (i.e., individuals high in avoidance and low in vigilance) showed stronger emotional priming effects than nonavoiders. Repressers also showed a memory deficit for emotional relative to neutral words, whereas sensitizers (vigilance high, avoidance low) remembered emotio nal words comparatively well. Results raise the question of whether re pressers' memory deficits for threat-related stimuli are actually base d on a less differentiated network of emotional information, as assume d by recent theoretical accounts of individual differences in coping.