The Repressive Coping Style and Fright Reactions to Mass Media

Over the last 15 years, a number of studies in the mass communication literature have tested hypotheses about viewers' emotional reactions to frightening movies or TV programs. An assumption seems to be that self-reports of negative emotion are adequate for testing hypotheses about emotional responses. This study challenges that assumption in arguing for an alternative position that self-report responses provide only a partial picture of emotional response. By including data on physiological arousal, a more complete and sometimes different view of emotional responses emerges. Participants were either repressors or nonrepressors. Consistent with research on the repressive coping style, this study revealed that repressors who reported low levels of negative affect in response to a frightening film exhibited significantly higher physiological arousal than did nonrepressors. These results suggest that for repressors, low levels of self-reported negative affect may not provide a complete picture of their emotional experience. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.