Paradoxical effects of thought suppression.

Wegner, Daniel M.; Schneider, David J.; Carter, Samuel R.; White, Teri L.

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.1.5

Cited by 1,768 publications

(1,435 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…thought listing task and while indicating preferences on the intertemporal choices. (Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987) Choice and Volition -8 Intertemporal Choices…”

Section: Thought Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…thought listing task and while indicating a preference for the scenario (Wegner et al, 1987) Choice and Volition -Self-Control Scenario…”

Section: Thought Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For participants in the depletion condition the thought control task ended before answering the scenario. (Wegner et al 1987) Choice and Volition -Self-Control Scenario…”

Section: Thought Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The propagation of self-control: Self-control in one domain simultaneously improves self-control in other domains.

Tuk¹,

Zhang²,

Sweldens³

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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A rich tradition in self-control research has documented the negative consequences of exerting self-control in one task for self-control performance in subsequent tasks. However, there is a dearth of research examining what happens when people exert self-control in multiple domains simultaneously. The current research aims to fill this gap. We integrate predictions from the most prominent models of self-control with recent neuropsychological insights in the human inhibition system to generate the novel hypothesis that exerting effortful self-control in one task can simultaneously improve self-control in completely unrelated domains. An internal meta-analysis on all 18 studies we conducted shows that exerting self-control in one domain (i.e., controlling attention, food consumption, emotions or thoughts) simultaneously improves self-control in a range of other domains, as demonstrated by, for example, reduced unhealthy food consumption, better Stroop task performance, and less impulsive decision making. A subset of nine studies demonstrates the crucial nature of task timing -when the same tasks are executed sequentially, our results suggest the emergence of an ego depletion effect. We provide conservative estimates of the self-control facilitation (d = |0.22|) as well as the ego depletion effect size (d = |0.17|) free of data selection and publication biases. These results (i) shed new light on self-control theories, (ii) confirm recent claims that previous estimates of the ego depletion effect size were inflated due to publication bias, and (iii) provide a blueprint for how to handle the power issues and associated file drawer problems commonly encountered in multi-study research projects.

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“…thought listing task and while indicating preferences on the intertemporal choices. (Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987) Choice and Volition -8 Intertemporal Choices…”

Section: Thought Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…thought listing task and while indicating a preference for the scenario (Wegner et al, 1987) Choice and Volition -Self-Control Scenario…”

Section: Thought Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The propagation of self-control: Self-control in one domain simultaneously improves self-control in other domains.

Tuk¹,

Zhang²,

Sweldens³

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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“…In his original work, Wegner reported the highest occurrence of unwanted thought at the onset of the Suppression period, which was independent of the preceding task condition (Wegner et al. 1987). The peak activity at the onset may therefore indicate positive relationship of IC19 with the coping process of thought suppression, instead of successful inhibition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1987). A common experience is of thoughts or images that tend to surface despite (or rather because of) our effort to suppress them, with these thoughts becoming more pronounced and even disabling in pathological states such as obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) (Rassin et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic interactions of the cortical networks during thought suppression

et al. 2016

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ObjectivesThought suppression has spurred extensive research in clinical and preclinical fields, particularly with regard to the paradoxical aspects of this behavior. However, the involvement of the brain's inhibitory system in the dynamics underlying the continuous effort to suppress thoughts has yet to be clarified. This study aims to provide a unified perspective for the volitional suppression of internal events incorporating the current understanding of the brain's inhibitory system.Materials and MethodsTwenty healthy volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed thought suppression blocks alternating with visual imagery blocks. The whole dataset was decomposed by group‐independent component analysis into 30 components. After discarding noise components, the 20 valid components were subjected to further analysis of their temporal properties including task‐relatedness and between‐component residual correlation.ResultsCombining a long task period and a data‐driven approach, we observed a right‐side‐dominant, lateral frontoparietal network to be strongly suppression related. This network exhibited increased fluctuation during suppression, which is compatible with the well‐known difficulty of suppression maintenance.ConclusionsBetween‐network correlation provided further insight into the coordinated engagement of the executive control and dorsal attention networks, as well as the reciprocal activation of imagery‐related components, thus revealing neural substrates associated with the rivalry between intrusive thoughts and the suppression process.

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