中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Negative affect commonly underlies anxiety and depression. Researchers have investigated the relationship between negative affect and emotional regulation. Maladaptive emotional regulation is a component of emotional disorders and thought suppression is associated with vulnerability to emotional disorders. The present study explored the role of thought suppression in the symptoms of emotional disorders by examining the thought suppression responses of 4 different emotional groups. Methods: The sample consisted of 279 undergraduate students from a private university in the northern region of Taiwan (66.5% female and 33.5% male, mean age=18.95 years). Participants were administered the Thought Suppression Inventory (TSI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Based upon the cutoff scores of the BDI and BAI, participants were assigned to the depressive tendency, anxious tendency, comorbid tendency, or normal group; the thought suppression responses in the different groups were compared. Results: Results of the analyses indicated that the TSI had good test-retest reliability, yet the internal-consistency was less satisfactory. Most indices in the factor analysis met the criteria for construct validity. When compared to the normal group, the comorbid, depressive, and anxious tendency groups all exhibited poorer self-perceived suppression ability. Conclusions: The difference observed between the normal group and the other groups appears to stem from the suppression of intrusive thoughts. Findings may have important theoretical and clinical implications.