Current issues in repressive coping and health

Abstract

The year 2004 marked 25 years since Weinberger, Schwartz and Davidson (1979) published their seminal paper identifying individuals who possess a repressive coping style (repressors). Repressors are identified by their low scores on self-report measures of trait anxiety (measured by various trait anxiety scales, e.g., the Bendig version of the Manifest Anxiety Scale; Bendig, 1956) and high scores on defensiveness (usually measured with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale; Crowne & Marlowe, 1964). Apart from the repressor group, three control groups are usually identified using the same typology: a further low trait anxiety group that is low on defensiveness (low-anxious) and two high trait anxiety groups, one that is low on defensiveness (high-anxious) and one that is high on defensiveness (defensive high-anxious) (Table 5.1). © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media.