Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1979 Repression and the absence of retrieval cues Clifford Arthur Levin Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Levin, Clifford Arthur, "Repression and the absence of retrieval cues" (1979). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 7289. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/7289 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WCIR 4EJ. ENGLAND 8010240 LEVIN, CUFFORD ARTHUR REPRESSION AND THE ABSENCE OF RETRIEVAL CUES Iowa State University PH.D. 1979 University Microfilms In t0r nât i O n 3.1 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 18 Bedford Row, London WCIR 4EJ, England Repression and the absence of retrieval cues by Clifford Arthur Levin A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Psychology Approved: Signature was redacted for privacy. In Charge of Major Work Signature was redacted for privacy. F the Maj epartm t Signature was redacted for privacy. For tme Gffeduate College Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1979 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 Repression Defined 3 Experimental Demonstrations of Repression 7 An Experimental Demonstration of Freudian Repression 20 CHAPTER II. METHOD 30 Subjects 30 Videotapes 30 Scripts 31 Conditions 33 Groups 34 Procedure 34 Scoring 38 CHAPTER III. RESULTS 39 Scoring 39 Analysis 39 Anxiety Measure 40 Recall Tests 41 Difference Scores 45 CHAPTER IV. DISCUSSION 51 Overview 51 Main Findings 54 Theoretical Implications 61 iii Page REFERENCES 65 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 68 APPENDIX 69 1 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION The concept of repression is integral to Freudian theory. Repression is the main defense mechanism described by Freud and was frequently considered to be synonymous with the word defense (e.g., Madison, 1961, p. 17). Basically, Freud be­ lieved: "The essense of repression lies simply in the func­ tion of rejecting and keeping something out of conscious­ ness," (Freud, 1915, p. 86). This "something" that is re­ pressed is the "instinct-presentation" which are ideas (thoughts) and affectations associated with an instinct, whose presence in consciousness results in pain. The pain is a product of awareness and satisfaction of an instinct that is incompatible with learned perceptions of one's self, or in Freudian terminology (Freud, 1915, p. 84) the pain develops through the awareness of ego threatening ideas or memories. Thus a person confronted with an anxious situation (an ego threatening event) will tend not to remember that event. Repression is not a loss of memory due to simply decay or interference, but rather a purposeful, selective "forget­ ting." Highly anxious material is taken from consciousness, and placed in an unconscious memory store (the unconscious). In this way the person is protected from experiencing pain. The material appears to be forgotten but, in theory, remains in the unconscious where it has limited access to conscious 2 memory. Later in this paper the unconscious will be further delineated in terms of Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1971) concep­ tion of it as a memory store without adequate retrieval cues (cues that aid in the recall of repressed memories). Once in the unconscious, the repressed memory contin­ uously exerts pressure towards conscious expression. Accord­ ing to Freud, it typically is successful in emerging in the form of neurotic symptoms, dreams, jokes, and slips of the tongue. Thus, in psychoanalysis, the major emphasis is on the retrieval of these repressed memories in an attempt to eliminate neurotic symptoms that are a direct manifestation of repressed memories. Only by bringing the memories into consciousness can the therapist help the client to eliminate the underlying cause of his inhibiting, and sometimes crip­ pling, symptomology. Even in the more contemporary psychotherapies, repression is a central concept. For example, the Gestalt therapist em­ phasizes the need to bring the client to his impasse, the blocking point of memory. The client has blocked from aware­ ness painful memories and thus limits access to important information that is essential for making constructive decisions. This is a direct translation of the Freudian concept of repres­ sion. The process is repeatedly present in almost all forms of psychotherapy which emphasize "insight." The purpose of this paper is to investigate this purported 3 ubiquitous process of repression. The intent is to: (1) clearly define the concept of repression, (2) present some of the major findings in repression research and some alterna­ tive hypotheses that have been suggested to account for these experimental findings, and (3) describe a study by the pres­ ent author that was designed to control for alternative hy­ potheses while demonstrating and further elucidating the re­ pression process via the use of retrieval cues. Repression Defined As described above, repression is a defense mechanism purported by Freud to account for the loss from consciousness (working memory) of ego threatening memories. The repression process protects an individual from experiencing severe anx­ iety, in contrast to just unpleasant feelings, (Rapaport, 1942, p. 42) by compartmentalizing highly threatening mem­ ories into the unconscious, a memory store where information is difficult to retrieve. This is an unconscious, automatic process in the sense that the repressor is unaware that any transfer of information is taking place (Bollard and Miller, 1950, p. 220). Freud describes two types of repression, primal repres­ sion and repression proper (Brenner, 1957), Primal repres­ sion refers to the process of shunting information directly into the unconscious without the material ever being present in conscious memory. This type of defense is traditionally 4 characterized as a protective mechanism from early, traumatic, childhood experiences. For example, a child that is exposed to an imexplainable, hence threatening situation, like an aggressive sexual scene between his or her parents, immedi­ ately relegates the memory of this event to the unconscious where it remains protected from working memory. Research with this type of repression has been widely explored under the rubric of perceptual defense. Briefly the basic paradigm of the perceptual defense literature involves the tachisto- scopic presentation, of brief duration, of low valued or taboo words and high valued or nonanxious words. The most common finding is that the threshold of perception is higher for words associated with anxious material. This result has been presented as evidence for primal repression. A review of the perceptual defense literature has been presented else­ where (Eriksen and Pierce, 1968) and will not be described in detail here. The second type of repression, repression power, refers to the process of transferring material, that was once in conscious memory, to the unconscious, due to its anxiety lad­ en content. Madison (1961, p. 20) refers to this process as a manipulation of conscious memory. That is, a person ex­ posed to an anxious situation will subsequently manipulate the memory