Thought suppression and traumatic intrusions in undergraduate students: a correlational study

Thought suppression (i.e. the process of consciously trying to avoid certai n thoughts) is claimed to promote memory loss, but also to increase the fre quency of intrusive thoughts (i.e. hyperaccessibility). Although these effe cts seem contradictory, Wegner, Quillian and Houston [Wegner, D. M., Quilli an, F., & Houston, C. (1996). Memories out of order: Thought suppression an d the disassembly of remembered experience. Journal of Personality and Soci al Psychology, 71, 680-691.] succeeded in reconciling them by postulating t he "scene activation" hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, hyperaccess ibility of isolated intrusive memories, due to thought suppression, leads t o perceived fragmentation (i.e. snapshot likeness) of the memory of the who le event, ultimately resulting in a perception of (partial) memory loss. To investigate this chain of events, undergraduate students (n = 110) complet ed questionnaires about thought suppression and their memories of highly ad verse experiences. Correlational analyses revealed that thought suppression was positively related to hyperaccessibility, snapshot likeness, and memor y loss. Structural equation modelling elucidated that thought suppression i s not necessarily the cause of these memory characteristics. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.