Defense Mechanisms

Question 1

Denial

Answer 1

internal or external reality is denied. Cairns (1992): repressors minimize the encoding of bad feedback

Question 2

Repression

Answer 2

ego-threatening TWFs are dismissed. Weinberger et al. (1979): Repressers (low anxiety + high social desirability recall less memories, especially negative memories)

Question 3

Projection

Answer 3

attribution of unacceptable TWFs onto others. Schimel et al. (2003): participants told they scored high in anger, then projected this onto a personal essay

Question 4

Reaction formation

Answer 4

unacceptable emotions mastered by exaggeration. Morokoff, (1985): women who reported high sex guilt, showed more sexual arousal to explicit photos

Question 5

Displacement

Answer 5

substitution of new aim for unacceptable originals. Esses and Zanna (1995): aggression triggered by music caused negative stereotypes to become more accessible

Question 6

Undoing

Answer 6

engage in contrary behavior to undo a thought or action. Roese (1994): upward (experimentally lead to improvment) and downward counterfactuals

Question 7

Isolation

Answer 7

gap creation of unpleasant thought and other thoughts. Maass, (1989): linguistic ingroup bias

Question 8

Sublimation

Answer 8

unacceptable impulses are consciously transformed into acceptable actions. Janus and Janus (1993): highly educated people engage in a greater variety of sexual practices