Repressive coping and verbal-autonomic response dissociation: the influence of social context.
This study examined whether verbal-autonomic response dissociation in repressive copers is potentiated by conditions that enhance social evaluative concerns. Women classified as repressive, low-anxious, or high-anxious gave a self-disclosing speech in either a private condition (a single researcher observed) or a public condition (3 researchers ostensibly observed). Repressors exhibited heart rate elevations that were greater in magnitude than their self-reports of negative affect, but only in the public condition. High-anxious Ss in both conditions showed an opposite pattern of verbal-autonomic dissociation in which self-reported negative affect exceeded cardiac response. Low-anxious Ss in both conditions showed little responsivity in either channel. Results are interpreted within a self-regulatory framework in which differences in self-concept in the domain of emotionality predispose repressive and high-anxious individuals to engage in contrasting, emotion-focused coping styles.
Newton
T L
TL
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
Contrada
R J
RJ
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001143:Arousal; D001364:Awareness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012931:Social Environment; D014705:Verbal Behavior