Social Cognition

Question 1

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Aim of Study 1

Answer 1

• Thought suppression is difficult for people to do; the conscious avoidance of a thought may be perplexing and even time consuming
• When thoughts can be suppressed, they may return to consciousness with minimal prompting, perhaps to become obsessive preoccupations

Question 2

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Study 1: Method

Answer 2

• two conditions: initial suppression condition or initial expression condition
• differend order of experimental tasks: for initial suppression, the subject was first instructed to suppress a thought and then to express it; for initial expression first to express it and then to suppress it
• initial suppression group: should not think of a white bear and every time they say or think about white bear they shall ring the bell on the table; after that they were asked to think of a white bear and again ringing the bell to indicate when the thought of white bear came to mind
• initial expression group: same instructions in reverse order

Question 3

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Study 1: Results

Answer 3

• Tokens of thought were more prevalent in the expression period than in the suppression periods, but suppression was never complete
• Tokens of thought more frequent in the expression period following initial suppression than in the initial expression period; similar effect was not observed in the suppression period following initial expression
• > initial suppression appears to produce a rebound effect

Question 4

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Aim of Study 2

Answer 4

• Rebound effects should be largely eliminated if the person uses a positive cue for self-distraction during suppression

Question 5

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Study 2: Method

Answer 5

• three experimental conditions:
  2 exact replications of experiment 1,
  3.: identical to the initial suppression condition with the exception that they were asked to distract themselves during initial suppression by means of a single positive cue, the thought of a red Volkswagen
  (condition was called focused distraction)

Question 6

Wegner, Schneider, Carter & White
“Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”

Study 2: Results

Answer 6

• The overall tendency for white-bear thoughts to occur during suppression was not reliably reduced in the focused-distraction group -> they still kept thinking of a white bear during suppression at a rate equivalent to that of subjects in the other groups
• Rebound effect of experiment 1 was replicated
• Rebound effect in the for thought occurrences was reliably reduced in the focused-distraction group