Jm. Boden et Rf. Baumeister, REPRESSIVE COPING - DISTRACTION USING PLEASANT THOUGHTS AND MEMORIES, Journal of personality and social psychology, 73(1), 1997, pp. 45-62
To avoid exposure to unpleasant or unwanted emotional material, some p
eople may distract themselves by summoning up pleasant thoughts such a
s happy memories. Manipulation of negative affect might therefore resu
lt in heightened accessibility of pleasant thoughts and memories, cont
rary to hypotheses of mood-congruent recall. In Experiment 1, represso
rs were faster to recall happy memories after watching an unpleasant f
ilm than after watching a neutral film. Nonrepressors showed the oppos
ite effect (i.e., mood-congruent memory). In Experiment 2, after an un
pleasant film, repressors were faster to recall a happy memory than to
recall a sad memory. In Experiment 3, repressors spontaneously genera
ted pleasant thoughts after watching an unpleasant film, whereas nonre
pressors did not. Thus, repressors apparently cope with exposure to ne
gative affective material by accessing pleasant thoughts. Results are
discussed in terms of cognitive defenses against emotional distress an
d the associative structure of repression.