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Why distractors with need-supportive content can mitigate ironic effects of thought suppression

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Abstract

Thought suppression is a self-regulatory strategy commonly used to avoid unwanted thoughts although it can ironically make unwanted thoughts more intrusive and accessible. To reduce these ironic effects, it is important to explore mechanisms underlying effective suppression. The present study recruited 126 undergraduate students and examined the influence of distractor content on suppression outcomes by examining perceived satisfaction and immersion of distractors as mechanisms of effective suppression. Based on self-determination theory, we proposed that distractors associated with the satisfaction of the psychological need for autonomy would mitigate ironic effects of thought suppression because they would be perceived as satisfying and immersive. Results showed that need-supportive distractors reduced intrusion frequency because they were indeed perceived as more satisfying. Our findings also point towards the unique satisfying properties of distractors involving psychological need satisfaction because effects of single, pleasant and personally relevant distractors have been controlled for. Findings are discussed using Wegner’s (Psychological Review 101:34–52, 1994) theories of thought suppression and principles of self-determination theory.

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Notes

  1. In addition to the 126 participants mentioned, we also included a ‘concentration’ condition (n = 31, Mean age = 21.3, SD = 3.8, 8 male, 23 female) in order to confirm that the free-distraction group’s accessibility levels represented ironic effects. This concentration condition instructed participants to deliberately think of the unwanted thought. Analysis confirmed that the free-distraction condition yielded ironic effects because no significant difference was found between concentration and free-distraction conditions in accessibility of the unwanted thought (p > .05; Wegner and Erber 1992). Given this and due to space limitations, we did not use the concentration group as a control condition.

  2. An additional scale was used - the internal validity check which included three items. These evaluated the degree to which participants subjectively perceived that their success in the suppression task was due to the immersive nature of the distractor (e.g., ‘I was able to keep away the thought of violence most of the time because I felt immersed in the thought of the yellow leaf’). Four-point response scales were adopted ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Since the relevance of this measure was contingent on significant indirect effects of distraction strategy on suppression outcomes via immersion and this was not detected, we decided not to report this measure.

  3. Manipulation checks were also conducted for a range of other extrinsic and intrinsic goals according to self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 1985; Sheldon et al. 2001), these include perceived popularity-influence, money-luxury, relatedness and competence. These however, were not used in the analyses as preliminary correlations showed no confounding associations between conditions and manipulation checks of non-condition-congruent goals. e.g. participants in the need-supportive condition consistently generated distractors facilitating a sense of autonomy and only autonomy, without supporting other needs or extrinsic goals.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship in supporting this research.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Correspondence to Deming Wang.

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The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Appendix A

Appendix A

One of the two passages below will be read to participants so that they can generate an appropriate distractor depending on their condition (extrinsic or ‘need-supportive’).

Extrinsic condition

Humans all have psychological desires, one such desire is our desire to have an attractive/appealing image. An event that satisfies your desire for image-attractiveness can be as small as doing your make up/dress up before a Friday night out, or perhaps looking better in the mirror after reaching a diet and/or exercise goal. Now that you understand what image-attractiveness means, please think of an event that had occurred in the last three months, however small it may be, that satisfied your desire for image-attractiveness. Please choose one that you can vividly recall and let me know what the event is so I can confirm that it is indeed an event that satisfies the aforementioned criteria. Please then write this event down using keywords on the piece of paper in front of you as this will be used in the next task.

Need-supportive condition

Humans all have psychological needs, one such need is our need for autonomy. Autonomy is a universal psychological need that is associated with our self-expression and desire to act in harmony with our values and goals, put simply, to make our own decisions and control our own lives. An event that satisfies your need for autonomy could be as small as doing something that you genuinely enjoy, or perhaps having the freedom to decide what career path to take after highschool. Now that you understand what autonomy means, please think of an event that had occurred in the last three months, however small it may be, that satisfied your need for autonomy. Please choose one that you can vividly recall and let me know what the event is so I can confirm that it is indeed an event that satisfies the aforementioned criteria. Please then write this event down using keywords on the piece of paper in front of you as this will be used in the next task.

One of the three passages below will be read to participants to manipulate the distractor content of different conditions.

Free-distraction condition

For the next part of this experiment, you will need to do all you can to avoid the thought of this word (experimenter hands over a piece of paper with the word ‘violence’ printed), that’s right, try not to think about this for the next 5 min.

Focused-distraction condition

For the next part of this experiment, you will need to do all you can to avoid the thought of this word (experimenter hands over a piece of paper with the word ‘violence’ printed), that’s right, try not to think about this for the next 5 min. To help you with this task, please focus on the thought of a yellow leaf.

Extrinsic and need-supportive conditions

For the next part of this experiment, you will need to do all you can to avoid the thought of this word (experimenter hands over a piece of paper with the word ‘violence’ printed), that’s right, try not to think about this for the next 5 min. To help you with this task, please focus on the event that you generated at the beginning.

Concentration condition

For the next part of this experiment, you will need to do all you can to concentrate on the thought of this (experimenter hands over a piece of paper with the word ‘violence’ printed), that’s right, try to focus on this thought for the next 5 min.

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Wang, D., Chatzisarantis, N.L.D. & Hagger, M.S. Why distractors with need-supportive content can mitigate ironic effects of thought suppression. Motiv Emot 42, 214–224 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-017-9653-3

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