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Is Poor Thought Suppression Integral to Pathological Worry?

Cooper, Graham E
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1416493396

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Past theory on intrusive worry (e.g., Wells and Carter 1999) suggests that intrusive worry reflects, in part, the worrier's poor success at, and excessive reliance on, thought suppression to control their negative thoughts. That is, high worriers should be expected to experience difficulty in suppressing their unwanted thoughts, and attempts to nonetheless do so should results in greater accessibility of those thoughts (Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000). Yet, empirical evidence supporting this theory has been rare, and recent research (Iijima & Tanno, 2012) has found that there are some high worriers who are able to successfully suppress unwanted thoughts, with this success predicting a reduced likelihood of ironic rebound. In a sample of 58 college students and using a standard laboratory thought suppression paradigm, the present study sought to replicate the findings by Iijima and Tanno (2012). Furthermore, individual differences in effortful control (EC) were proposed as an explanation for differential suppression success among high worriers. Specifically, we expected that the association between worry and thought suppression success is moderated by EC and the association between worry and ironic consequences of suppression is mediated by initial suppression success. We also tested the hypothesis that high worriers who suppress well will be less likely than their poor suppressing counterparts to show evidence of pathological worry (e.g., they should be less likely to meet diagnostic criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder [GAD]). The results successfully replicated the findings by Iijima and Tanno (2012). However, contrary to expectations there was no evidence to suggest that individual differences in EC account for differential suppression success among high worriers. Furthermore, suppression success did not moderate the association between worry and any indicators of pathological worry. Thus, high worriers who suppressed successfully in the thought suppression task were not less likely than their poor suppressing counterparts to meet GAD criteria or to score high on measures of other indicators of pathological worry. This suggests that thought suppression difficulties may not play an important role in pathological worry. However, the fact that success in the thought suppression task did not predict differences in questionnaire-based measures of thought intrusions frequency and thought suppression success during the participants' daily lives, raises doubt about the thought suppression task’s ecological validity. Furthermore, there was evidence to suggest that self-reported thought suppression success moderates the relationship between worry and symptoms of pathological worry. Specifically, for those individuals reporting low levels of suppression success, high worry was more strongly associated with certain symptoms of pathological worry than it was for individuals reporting high levels of suppression success. Thus, research on suppression among worriers should not presuppose that high worriers will experience failure on a laboratory suppression task, but neither should it presuppose that performance on such a task is an accurate representation of a worrier's true thought suppression abilities.
Michael Vasey, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Julian Thayer, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Amelia Aldao, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
68 p.
Clinical Psychology; Psychology
Worry; GAD; Thought Suppression

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cooper, G. E. (2014). Is Poor Thought Suppression Integral to Pathological Worry? [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1416493396

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cooper, Graham. Is Poor Thought Suppression Integral to Pathological Worry? 2014. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1416493396.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cooper, Graham. "Is Poor Thought Suppression Integral to Pathological Worry?" Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1416493396

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1416493396
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.