Influence of repression on autobiographical memories and expectations of the future

The present study investigated repressors’ self-referential processing of autobiographical memories and future events in terms of specificity and response latency. Repressors (n = 20) and nonrepressor controls (n= 17) selected from a larger pool (N=166) completed an autobiographical memory task (AMT) and a future event task (FET). As expected, repressors were less specific than controls in reporting unpleasant experiences (anxious and depressive) but were no different to the controls in the specificity of their reports of pleasant experiences. This pattern of group differences applied to both past and future time frames although all participants were more specific in reporting pleasant and anxious experiences than depressive experiences. Unexpectedly, repressors’ response latencies were not slower for unpleasant experiences than that of controls. All participants were faster in anticipating future events than in recalling past memories. In keeping with theoretical accounts, anticipation of anxiety-related experiences was faster than recall of anxiety-related memories, whereas latencies for depression-related or pleasant-related experiences did not differ.