WORKING-MEMORY CAPACITY IN HIGH TRAIT-ANXIOUS AND REPRESSOR GROUPS

The verbal reasoning performance of (high-anxious thigh trait anxiety, low defensiveness), defensive high-anxious thigh trait anxiety, (high defensiveness), repressor (low trait anxiety, high defensiveness), an d low-anxious (low trait anxiety, low defensiveness) groups was examin ed under high and low memory load conditions. As predicted by the proc essing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992), the slowing of reaso ning speed with the high memory load was disproportionately great for the high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups. The effects of hig h memory load on reasoning speed were the same for the low-anxious and repressor groups, suggesting that both groups had equivalently low le vels of worrying (and other anxiety-related) task-irrelevant thoughts. Theoretical implications of these, and other findings, for the unders tanding of repressors were discussed.