Further experiments have documented similar findings (e.g. In order for thought suppression and its effectiveness to be studied researchers have had to find ways of tapping the processes going on in the mind so that they may be described. Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., Milne, A. Over thirty-five experiments to date have found evidence for thought suppression and its effectiveness. On the other hand, thought suppression has been claimed to possess memory-undermining qualities. Thought suppression and obsession-compulsion. Emailing resources to clients is restricted to only the Advanced and Team plans. Each process is involved with a specific mental task. However, when told they were going to meet such an individual those in the suppression condition sat significantly further away from the seat the ‘skinhead’ had evidently occupied moments earlier (by virtue of his clothes being present). Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Firstly, typical thought suppression may not involve simple targets like coloured animals but socially more complex and personal thoughts. However, this may be explained by a consideration of individual differences. A cognitive-behavioral model of thought suppression as a maintaining factor in psychopathology. This is the ironic process theory.In theory, one of the processes occurs when a person deliberately tries to suppress an image or memory from his or her mind. There is evidence that techniques such as cognitive restructuring, or mindfulness/acceptance are helpful techniques for managing intrusive cognitions. The idea that suppressing an unwanted thought results in an ironic increase in its frequency is accepted as psychological fact. Roemer, E., & Borkovec, T. D. (1994). B., & Jetten, J. However, such tasks are personally irrelevant and this may be problematic as naturalistic distracter activity is likely to employ personally relevant tasks (e.g. It can be regarded as a psychological defence mechanism. The research, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1987 (Vol. For this reason standard psychological therapies avoid thought suppression and try to focus on distraction and acceptance (Beevers et al., 1999). However, while it can account for the findings of that suppression of emotional thoughts leads to increased frequency of intrusions (because emotions interfere with the conscious process) it cannot do so in a way that is completely satisfactory as some studies do not find evidence that this is the case. After this, participants were told to think about the target for five-minutes more. Interestingly, research has shown that the more you try to suppress your thoughts, the more those same thoughts come back (even if you don’t have OCD). The first of these provided by Wegner (1989) suggests that individuals distract themselves using environmental items which then become retrieval cues for the thought causing the search for a new distracter. The studies are unable to find this effect for emotional thoughts, in hypnotized individuals, and when one distracter is used. In J. Strachey (Ed. Freud, S. (1955). Setting free the bears: Escape from thought suppression. Moreover, assuming no retrieval cue is forged it is able to explain how one distracter can make thought suppression effective. Wegner, D. M., Schnider, D. J., Carter, S. This is because there is an ideal balance between the two processes with the cognitive demand not being too great as to let the monitoring process supersede it. However, even though such a method overcomes the problem it, and all the other methodologies, use self-report as the primary form of data-collection. This chapter reviews the research on suppression, which spans a wide range of domains, including emotions, memory, interpersonal processes, psychophysiological reactions, and psychopathology. III., White, L. (1987). Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound. That said the problem remains that the cause of the paradoxical effect may be in the thought tapping measures used (e.g. 1) initiated an entirely new field of study on thought suppression. Thought suppression causes thought rebound. We conducted several tests of the idea that an inclination toward thought suppression is associated with obsessive thinking and emotional reactivity. Geraerts, E., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., & Smeets, E. (2006). ), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. Rassin, E., Merckelbach, H., & Muris, P. (2000). Over the next decade, Wegner developed his theory of "ironic processes" to explain why it's so hard to tamp down unwanted thoughts. Cioffi and Holloway, 1993; Wegner, Shortt, Blake, and Page, 1990). It is also related to work on memory inhibition. That is, successful suppression may involve less distraction. bell ringing). It may mean that in experimental conditions participants are deliberately finding multiple distracters during suppression, which may not be how successful naturalistic thought suppression operates. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 467–474. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. It is proposed that intrusive thoughts and memories evoke negative emotional responses (sadness, anxiety, fear) due to negative appraisals or … Although it makes perfect intuitive sense to try and suppress unwanted thoughts, unfortunately the very process we use to … The irony of thought suppression, then, is that actively trying to manage our own minds can sometimes do more harm than good. The results of these studies are not encouraging in as much as they have demonstrated that trying to suppress impersonal and, on the face of it, personal thoughts is ineffective as the frequency of that thought increases during suppression and after it. Wegner has often suggested that rebounds following thought suppression may contribute to obsessions, dieting failures, and difficulties stopping behaviors like smoking. Wegner called this the ironic process theory. Importantly, whilst the evidence shows that we can control these thoughts from being translated into behaviour when self-monitoring is high such control is not observable in normal, automatic behaviours (i.e. Abstract Experimental studies often demonstrate that thought suppression (i.e., consciously trying to avoid having certain thoughts), paradoxically, leads to hyperaccessibility of the to-be-suppressed thought. (1985). 2) White Bear Suppression Inventory, a measure of thought suppression (a component of experiential avoidance). This is subtly different from Freud’s (1955) concept of repression, which is unconscious and automatic and has relatively little empirical support (see Eysenck, 1985; Holmes, 1990 for a review). London: Hogarth. However, another criticism that can be made of all these experiments is that they may not be accounting for the plausible strategy of naturalistic thought suppression to find distracters. These phenomena form the focus of this article: we will review how thought suppression may lead us to become our own worst enemy. Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis. To suppress a thought re-quires that one (a) plan to suppress a thought and (b) carry out that plan by suppressing all manifestations of the thought, in-cluding the original plan. This iterative process then leads to the individual being surrounded by retrieval cues which causes the rebound effect. Paradoxical and less paradoxical effects of thought suppression: a critical review. Suppression is a common approach to unwanted thoughts, worriers, doubts, or urges. Wenzlaff, R. M., Wegner, D. M. (2000). Cioffi, D., & Holloway, J. As time has progressed experiments have become more elaborate and better able to extend their findings to naturalistic thought suppression. Thought suppression leads to a ‘rebound effect’ which can make the experiences more prominent. Wegner, D. M. (1994). © 2021 Psychology Tools. The second process is conscious and scans for distracters. ), Repression and dissociation: Implications for personality theory, psychopathology, and health (pp. To resolve this some studies have changed the target thought from a personally irrelevant to relevant one. THOUGHT SUPPRESSION: "Thought suppression should be practiced regularly and can take extensive periods of time to show successful results." Thought suppression is a finding from experimental psychology with particularly strong applicability to clinical work. Thought suppression refers to the mental process of consciously attempting to avoid thinking about a particular thought. Initially, we developed a self-report measure of thought suppression through successive factor-analytic procedures and found that it exhibited acceptable internal consistency and temporal stability. Wegner, D. M., & Erber, R. (1992). Geraerts et al., in press) there may be an important role of individual differences that may be able to account for this however. Brown, G. M. (1990). Thought suppression is typically ineffective with activities causing an increase in the to-be-suppressed thought, which is exacerbated when the cognitive load is increased. A reaction to this has been to explore the effects of thought suppression using more reliable measures, like behaviour. This is thought suppression - the attempt to avoid thinking about something. Furthermore, thought suppression partially mediates the relationship between emotional reactivity and the frequency of NSSI and suicidal ideation. The evidence for repression: An examination of sixty years of research. “white bear”) for five-minutes but if they did to ring a bell. The first unconsciously monitors for occurrences of the unwanted thought calling upon the second should it find something. This difference in coping style may account for the disparities within the literature. These results show that even though there may have been an initial enhancement of the stereotype participants were able to prevent this being communicated in writing but not in their behaviour. Roemer and Borkovec (1994) found that participants who suppressed anxious or depressing personal thoughts showed a significant rebound effect compared to those who expressed the thoughts from the outset. In addition, this phenomenon is made paradoxically worse by increasing the amount of distractions a person has, although the experiments in this area can be criticized for using impersonal concurrent tasks which may not properly reflect natural processes. In attempt to account for these findings a number of theorists have produced cognitive models of thought suppression. TIP: The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Thought_suppression?oldid=128183. Clinical Psychology Review, 20(8), 973–995. This information sheet gives a simple outline of thought suppression, and the effects of trying to suppress intrusive thoughts. Research on ironic processes by Daniel M. Wegner and his colleagues has yielded fundamental and important conclusions. Depression and mental control: The resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts. Kelly, A. E., & Kahn, J. H. (1994). 6. Wegner, D. M., Quillian, F., & Houston, C. (1996). The explanation of ironic processes during thought suppression is that a person’s mind simultaneously engages in two distinct processes. In Study 1 (N= 87) and Study 2 (N = 114), higher and lower reactant undergraduates were instructed either to suppress or to express their own intrusive thoughts during a stream-of-consciousness writing task. Thought suppression is most powerfully explained by a demonstration. Therefore, although there is good laboratory evidence for the poor effectiveness of thought suppression confidently projecting such findings onto naturalistic behaviours is conceivably problematic. Thought suppression is a common feature of problems such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) where individuals attempt to suppress intrusive thoughts. Psychological Review, 101, 34–52. In addition, it’s counterproductive. Smári, Sigurjónsdóttir, & Sæmundsdóttir, 1994; Kelly & Kahn, 1994; Wegner, Quillian, & Houston, 1996). This theory is as good as its predecessor but has the advantage of being able to explain the data from hypnotism and can better explain the effects of increased cognitive load because where there is cognitive effort the monitoring process may supplant the conscious process. Behaviour Research and Therapy 44, 1451-1460. Thought suppression is a finding from experimental psychology with particularly strong applicability to clinical work. (1994). Psychologists call this ‘thought suppression’ but unfortunately it is rarely completely effective. a ‘skinhead’) individuals’ written descriptions of a group member’s typical day contained less stereotypical thoughts than that of controls. Background: Engaging in thought suppression as a coping mechanism has been associated with higher rates of anxiety and depressive disorders in younger adults. Thought suppression is the conscious attempt to not think about something. Smári, J., Sigurjónsdóttir, H., & Sæmundsdóttir, I. Recent research by Geraerts, Merckelbach, Jelicic, & Smeets (2006) found that for individuals with low anxiety and high desirability traits (repressors) suppressed anxious autobiographical events intruded fewer times than in other (low, high and high defensive anxious) groups initially but showed more intrusions after one-week. Emotional suppression is a type of emotional regulationstrategy that is used to try and make uncomfortable thoughts and feelings more manageable. There's no reason "thought suppression" *couldn't* have a political meaning, but I've simply never heard it used that way. Thought Suppression. Despite Rassin, Merkelbach and Muris (2000) reporting that this finding is moderately robust in the literature some studies were unable to replicate results (e.g. Two studies explored whether dispositional reactance moderates the effects of thought suppression. White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and the psychology of mentalcontrol. (1996). The basic finding is that the harder one tries not to think of something, the more that item intrudes into consciousness. Finally, adolescents with a higher tendency to suppress unwanted thoughts report engaging in NSSI in order to reduce … (A. Strachey & J. Strachey, Trans.). Paradoxical effects of thoughts suppression. Wegner’s ironic processes model has been applied to understanding the development and persistence of mood, anxiety, and other difficulties. 3) Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, a measure of flexible contact with the present moment. The first of these provided by Wegner (1989) suggests that individuals distract themselve… Eysenck, H. J. The John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James, Wegner redefined social psychology as the science of human experience. It is often associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which a sufferer will repeatedly (usually unsuccessfully) attempt to prevent or "neutralize" intrusive distressing thoughts centered around one or more obsessions.It is also related to work on memory inhibition. Intrusive thoughts (and thought suppression) are also features of other clinical conditions such as PTSD and depression. (1994). This Thought Suppression And Intrusive Thoughts information sheet gives clear instructions for how to carry out the ‘white bear’ test. Since it's a common term in the field of psychology which has a particular meaning within that context and is unused or underused outside of it, I think it's fair to keep the article as it is. Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903; e-mail: [email protected] Key Words mental control, intrusive thought, rebound effect, ironic processes Abstract Although thought suppression is a popular form of mental control, The basic finding is that the harder one tries not to think of something, the more that item intrudes into consciousness. This effect is stronger for thoughts that have emotional content. Wegner, D. M. (2011). Wegner, D.M., Erber, R. & Zanakos, S. (1993) Ironic processes in the mental control of mood and mood-related thought. Thought suppression is trying to ignore or control thoughts that we find threatening or distressing. Attempts at thought suppression occur regularly in daily life but are especially frequent in individuals suffering from psychopathological conditions which are often associated with high levels of distressing thoughts. London: The Guilford Press. Furthermore, Wenzlaff, Wegner, & Roper (1988) demonstrated that anxious or depressed subjects were less able to suppress negative unwanted thoughts. A high cognitive load acts to reduce the effectiveness of thought suppression but that using a focused target can improve the effectiveness. However, when only one distracter is used thought suppression has been shown to be successful. This may be problematic because of response distortion, where participants may lower their reported frequencies so as to avoid the risk of being pejoratively labelled. Lavy, E. H., & Van den Hout, M. (1990). This means that one is aware that a particular feeling, thought, or want has made way and one is making a deliberate effort to not dwell on it―one, by not thinking about it (internally) and two, by not acting on it (externally). All rights reserved, Thought Suppression And Intrusive Thoughts. To this end, participants were given cognitively demanding concurrent tasks and the results showed a paradoxical higher frequency of target thoughts than controls (Wegner & Erber, 1992; Wegner, Erber & Zanakos, 1993). Involve simple targets like coloured animals but socially more complex and personal thoughts explored whether dispositional reactance moderates effects... The focus of this topic reveal that this mental control strategy can be for! Monitors for occurrences of the idea that an inclination toward thought suppression critical. That techniques such as obsessive compulsive disorder ( OCD ) where individuals attempt to for. The second process is conscious and scans for distracters 1993 ; Wegner, D. M., &,! A type of emotional regulationstrategy that is used thought suppression is typically ineffective with activities an! Is the conscious attempt to avoid thinking about something produce no paradoxical effects of an ). 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