The Hyperaccessibility of Suppressed Thoughts

The accessibility of suppressed thoughts was compared with the accessibility of thoughts on which Ss were consciously trying to concentrate. In Experiment 1, Ss made associations to word prompts as they tried to suppress thinking about a target word (e.g., house ) or tried to concentrate on that word. Under the cognitive load imposed by time pressure, they gave the target word in response to target-related prompts (e.g., home ) more often during suppression than during concentration. In Experiment 2, reaction times for naming colors of words were found to be greater under conditions of cognitive load when Ss were asked to suppress thinking of the word than under conditions of no cognitive load or when Ss were asked to concentrate on the word. The results support the idea that an automatic search for the suppression target increases the accessibility of the target during suppression.