The gravity of unwanted thoughts: Asymmetric priming effects in thought suppression.

Full Abstract

An unwanted thought appears to be cued easily by reminders in the environment but often the thought itself seems to cue nothing more than the desire to eliminate it from consciousness. This unusual asymmetry in the way unwanted thoughts are linked to other thoughts was the focus of the present research. Participants who were asked to suppress a thought or to concentrate on it completed a task assessing the influence of priming on reaction time (RT) for word/non-word judgments. Results revealed that suppression under cognitive load produced asymmetric priming:
Priming with the associate of a suppressed word speeded RT for the suppressed word, but priming with a suppressed word did not speed RT for associated words. These findings suggest that thought suppression induces an unusual form of cognitive accessibility in which movement of activation toward the suppressed thought from associates is facilitated but movement of activation away from the suppressed thought to associates is undermined.

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Author information

Author/s: Najmi, Sadia (S); Wegner, Daniel M (DM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, WJH 1244, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. najmi(-atsign-)fas.harvard.edu

Grants: MH49127 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Consciousness and cognition (Conscious Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Mar; vol 17 (issue 1) : pp 114-24

Dates: Created 2008/03/24; Completed 2008/04/16;

PMID: 17339120, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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