Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1997

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Kathleen A. Lawler

Committee Members

Mark A. Hector, Schuyler W. Huck, P. Gary Klukken

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between the repressive coping style and the experience of anger. The repressive coping style is characterized by the tendency to unconsciously avoid the experience of negative emotions and cognitions. Repressors are typically defined based on their reports of low anxiety and high defensiveness, although they are hypothesized to avoid negative affect in general. In the present study, 50 females and 45 males from a pool of 192 undergraduate students enrolled in a public state university were classified into four coping style groups based on their scores on the Bendig Short Form of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale as follows: low-anxious/high-defensive (repressors), low-anxious/low-defensive, high-anxious/low-defensive, and high-anxious/high-defensive. In order to determine whether trait anger was commensurate with trait anxiety in the classification of repressors, coping style groups were classified again by a second method using scores on the Trait Anger subscale of the State-Trait Anger Expression Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. A high concordance rate (91.9% for females and 92.5% for males) between these two methods of classifying repressors was found. Cognitive and somatic aspects of the experience of anger were examined among the coping style groups defined by trait anxiety and defensiveness scores. Subjects' responses to the Cognitive-Somatic Anger Scales revealed that repressors experienced less cognitive anger than all other groups and less somatic anger than the high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups. A comparison of cognitive and somatic anger within Groups revealed that individuals in all four coping style groups reported similar levels of both of these aspects of the experience of anger. Exploration of the recovery period following an anger recall interview indicated that repressors did not differ from other groups in their reports of behaviors, thoughts, bodily reactions, or state anger during the recovery period. With regard to other negative feelings, however, repressors reported fewer feelings of unhappiness during the recovery period than high-anxious subjects. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that repressors' avoidance of anxiety generalizes to other forms of negative affect as well. The avoidance of anger appears to extend beyond repressors' reports of trait anger to also include their cognitive and somatic experiences of anger. Implications of these results and recommendations for future research were explored.

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