Lake Forest College R. S. Lazarus's theory of coping was used to investigate appraisal and reappraisal of threat in repressers and sensitizers. Two indexes of stress, self-report ratings of affect and palmar skin conductance, were measured prior to performance on a reaction time task, after one-third of the task was completed and after two-thirds of the task was completed. Results of the first period replicated earlier findings that skin conductance does not differentiate repression-sensitization (R-S) groups and that discrepancy scores between skin conductance and self-reported "tenseness" show repressers to be relatively higher on the former, while sensitizers are relatively higher on the latter. Ratings of "tenseness," "excitedness," and "interest" converged for R-S groups across periods. It was suggested that uncertainty associated with the initial period created threat and the subsequent characteristic defensive patterns in R-S groups, but that increased familiarity with the task and external feedback minimized prior dispositional differences. Perhaps R-S is best predictive of behavior in circumstances characterized by few external cues and high threat appraisal.

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