Abstract
When a person tries to suppress a thought, environmental features are often used as distracters. This research examined whether such distracters later become reminders of the unwanted thought when suppression is discontinued — and so incline the individual who remains in the suppression environment to experience a rebound of preoccupation with the unwanted thought. Subjects were asked to think aloud and to signal with a bell ring any thoughts of white bears. They were directed either to think or not to think of white bears in one context (a slide show). When they were then invited to think about white bears in a different slide-show context, no appreciable rebound of white bear thoughts was found in the subjects who had initially suppressed. However, when they were issued the same invitation on return to the initial context, those who had initially suppressed showed a rebound of preoccupation.
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This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation grant BNS 88-18611. We thank Sara Dimitri, Victor Herrera, Mark Mitchell, and Joann Wu Shortt for their assistance in the conduct of this research and Mary Dozier, Stan Klein, Toni Wegner, and Richard Wenzlaff for their helpful suggestions. Brian Knutson is now at Stanford University.
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Wegner, D.M., Schneider, D.J., Knutson, B. et al. Polluting the stream of consciousness: The effect of thought suppression on the mind's environment. Cogn Ther Res 15, 141–152 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173204
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173204