The colour naming of emotional words

The study reported here used the Stroop test in order to distinguish individuals with a repressive ‘coping’ style from low and high anxious persons. The task required the colour naming of words relating to negative emotions. The three groups were identified by use of the Marlowe‐Crowne scale of social desirability and the Spielberger Trait Anxiety scale. As predicted, the task clearly distinguished between repressors and the low anxious: repressors were severely retarded on this task while the low anxious showed no effect on performance. However, the distinction between repressors and the high anxious was less clear. The anxious group also showed a decrement in performance although it was considerably smaller than that produced by repressors. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for the applicability of the test as a measure of repressive coping style.