Do childhood memories colour social judgements of today? the case of repressors

Myers, L.B. and Derakhshan, Nazanin (2004) Do childhood memories colour social judgements of today? the case of repressors. European Journal of Personality 18 (4), pp. 321-330. ISSN 1099-0984.

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/per.521

Abstract

Previous research has shown that individuals who possess a repressive coping style have significantly poorer recall of negative childhood memories and also exhibit more comparative optimism for negative events than nonrepressors. The current study investigated whether there is a relationship between recall of childhood memories and comparative optimism. Repressors (REP, low trait anxiety–high defensiveness, N = 20) were compared with specific nonrepressor groups on trait anxiety and defensiveness: low anxious (LA, N = 16), high anxious (HA, N = 16) defensive high anxious (DHA, N = 13), and a non‐extreme group (NE, N = 15) chosen from an initial pool of 163 female participants. For REP compared with all non‐REP, age of earliest negative memory recalled was significantly older and REP recalled significantly fewer negative childhood memories. For REP only there was a significant correlation between number of negative memories recalled and comparative optimism, with high comparative optimism correlated with a low number of negative childhood memories recalled. There were no other significant correlations with comparative optimism, overall, or for any of the sub‐groups. These results indicate a link between childhood and adult measures of social judgements for REP only.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
School:	Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
Depositing User:	Sarah Hall
Date Deposited:	12 Nov 2019 15:30
Last Modified:	02 Aug 2023 17:55
URI:	https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/29911

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