Interacting Effects of Unmitigated Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought

Suppression among University Students

Ma’am Nazia Ishfaq

Supervisor

Javeria Tehseen

Research Scholar

Reg. No. ADCP-011R17-5

Advance Diploma in Clinical Psychology

Session 2017-2018

Department of Psychology

Institute of Southern Punjab, Multan

 II

Interacting Effects of Unmitigated Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought

Suppression among University Students

Javeria Tehseen

Advance diploma in Clinical Psychology

Session 2017-2018

…………………………………………………

Supervisor

……………………………………………….

External Examiner

………………………………………………

Head of Department
 III

Declaration
It is solemnly declared that the research work of my thesis entitled “Interacting Effects of Unmitigated

Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression among University Students” has been done by

me and not presented by anyone of this partial fulfillment of any degree. It is further declare that there is

no any sort of plagiarism in my research work.

Javeria Tehseen
 IV

Certificate
It is certified that the thesis on the topic of “Interacting Effects of Unmitigated Communion,

Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression among University Students” has been compiled

and written by Javeria Tehseen, Reg. No. ADCP-011R17-5 and it is approved for submission

.No part of this thesis has been copied by him or reproduced somewhere else in any form, nor it

has been plagiarized.

……………………………………….

Nazia Ishfaq

Supervisor
 V

Dedicated to
My Father (late)
 VI

Acknowledgement

I want to thank my supervisor, Nazia Ishfaq, for her continuous support and encouragement

throughout my Clinical Diploma program. She made me realize my full potential and provided

me with numerous opportunities to use my talents. She helped me to recognize the strengths that

I often overlooked.

Javeria Tehseen
 VII

Table of Content

Title Page no.

Declaration iii

Certificate Iv

Acknowledgement Vi

Table of content Vii

Abstract Xi

Chapter 1

Introduction 1

1.1 .1 Background of Unmitigated Communion 1

1.1.2 Unmitigated Communion 4

1.1.3 Role of Unmitigated Communion 5

1.1.4 Types of Unmitigated Communion 6

1.1.4.1 Overinvolvement 6

1.1.4.2 Self-neglect 7

1.1.4.3 Externalized self-evaluation 8

1.2.1 Definition of Coping Strategies 11

1.2.2 Types of Coping Strategies 13

1.2.2.1 Emotional Coping 13

1.2.2.2 Avoidance Coping 14

 VIII

1.2.2.3 Specific Coping Strategies 15

1.2.2.3.1 AC (active coping) 15

1.2.2.3.2 P (planning) 15

1.2.2.3.3 SCA (suppression of competing activities) 16

1.2.2.3.4 RC (restraint coping) 16

1.2.2.3.5 SSSIR (seeking social support for instrumental reasons) 17

1.2.2.3.6 SSSER (seeking social support for emotional reasons) 17

1.2.2.3.7 PRG (positive reinterpretation and growth) 17

1.2.2.3.8 A (acceptance) 18

1.2.2.3.9 D (denial) 18

1.2.2.3.10 MD (mental disengagement) 19

1.2.2.3.11 Humor 19

1.2.2.3.12 FVE (Focus on and venting of emotions) 19

1.2.2.3.13 RC (Religious Coping) 20

1.2.2.3.14 BD (Behavioral Disengagement) 20

1.2.2.3.15 Substance Use 21

1.2.3 Ways of Coping Strategies 21

1.2.4 Individual Differences 23

1.3.1 Defining of Thought Suppression 25

1.3.2 Early work on Thought Suppression 27

1.3.3 The Phenomenon of Suppression 28

1.3.4 Causes of Thought Suppression 32

1.3.5 Effects of thought Suppression on one’s perception of actions 32

 IX

1.3.6 Individual Differences 33

1.3.7 Overcoming the behavioral effects of thought suppression 35

1.4 Rationale of the study 36

1.5 Research Gap 37

1.6 Research Questions 37

1.7 Aims and objectives of the Study 38

1.8 Hypothesis 38

Chapter 2

Literature Review 39

2.1 Thought Suppression and Coping Strategies 39

2.2 Thought Suppression and Unmitigated Communion 42

2.3 Coping Strategies and Unmitigated Communion 45

Chapter 3

Method 48

3.1 Study I 48

3.1.1 Forward Translation 48

3.1.2 Reconciliation of item 48

3.1.3 Backward Translation 49

3.1.4 Review of the forward and backward Translation 49

3.1.5 Pre-Test (Cognitive Interview) 49

3.1.6 Validity Study 49

3.2 Study II 51
 X

3.2. 1Operational Definition 51

3.2.2 Research Design 51

3.2.3 Participants 52

3.2.4 Instruments 52

3.2.4.1 White bear suppression inventory 52

3.2.4.2 Coping Inventory 52

3.2.4.3 Unmitigated Communion 53

3.2.5 Procedure 53

Chapter 4

Results 55

Chapter 5

Discussion 90

5.1 Conclusion 93

5.2 Implication 93

5.3 Limitations 93

5.4 Suggestion 94

References 95

Appendices 107
 XI

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the interacting effects of Unmitigated

Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression among university students. Convenient

sampling was employed to gather data of 300 participants (Males=150 and Female=150) from

different universities of Multan. The sample was collected using Unmitigated Communion Scale

(Fritz & Helgeson, 1998), the COPE inventory (Caver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989) and WBSI

(Wegner & Zanakos, 1994). The scales were translated into Urdu language by standard

procedure (Waters et al., 2006). The results revealed that there are significant interacting effects

between the variables. Furthermore, thought suppression did not vary on gender while

unmitigated communion was found to be higher in males than females.

Keywords: Unmitigated Communion, Coping Strategies, Thought Suppression.

 1

Chapter I

Introduction

Unmitigated Communion

1.1.1 Background

Agency and communion were constructs urbanized by Bakan (1966) to reproduce two

basic modalities of human survival. Agency was connected to focal point on the self and

partition, while communion was associated to a center of attention on others and relationship.

Agency reproduces one‘s life as a human being, and communion reproduce the involvement of

the individual in a bigger organism of which the individual is a component.

These two psychological services—accomplish one‘s personal ambition by center of

attention on the self and helping others to accomplish their objective—spread through the

psychological literature. These services are confine in Bakan‘s (1966) constructs of agency and

communion as glowing as Parson and Bales‘ (1955) features between instrumental opposed to

expressive roles, the need for accomplishment (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1976),

the necessitate for intimacy (McAdams & Vaillant, 1982), the authority and nurturance

dimensions of the Interpersonal disk (Wiggins & Trapnell (1996), the diagnostic versus

introjective orientations (Blatt & Shichman, 1983), and the instrumentality and expressiveness

scales from the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974) and the Personal Attributes

Questionnaire (PAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974). We admit that Bakan‘s thoughts about

agency and communion as wide-ranging organizing values of human being cannot be fully
 2

captured by the operationalization of a few of these constructs. However, each of these

constructs is dependable with some feature of Bakan‘s ideas about agency and communion.

Even though the constructs of agency and communion have been talk about for more than

a few decades, the two related constructs—unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion—

have not established nearly as much notice until in recent times. Bakan (1966) dispute that it was

important for agency to be mitigated by communion and that ‗‗unmitigated agency‘‘ would show

the way to a broad range of health vulnerability, such as infanticide, cancer, and suicide.

Unmitigated agency is a focal point on the self to the barring of others. It takes account of being

hostile, cynical, greedy, and arrogant. This individual has a downbeat view of the world and of

other community. Hostility is one element of unmitigated agency and an immense literature

exists demonstrating the health exposure of hostility. In exacting, hostility has been linked with

cardiovascular disease and additional main life–frightening illnesses (Smith, 1992,).

On the other hand, hostility may be one element of a broader tendency to place one‘s own

desires before individuals of others. In the current article, we discover the health suggestion of

this common category of traits described unmitigated agency. In the same way, another

imbalance of focal point—focusing on others to the leaving out of the self or unmitigated

communion—could be disadvantageous to health. Unmitigated communion engage placing

others‘ desires before one‘s own, worrying extremely about others‘ troubles, and helping others

to one‘s own loss. Bakan (1966) disguised that communion should to be mitigated by agency but

he never straightly discussed the inference of unmitigated communion.

 3

Attention to assemble of unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion may assist to

make clear a differing literature on the links of agency and communion, as operationalized by the

PAQ and BSRI, to bond and health outcomes. For paradigm, the relations of agency to social

support are not in agreement. Agency has been correlated to bigger support fulfillment (Zeldow,

Clark, & Daugherty, 1985) and more social contacts (Helgeson, 1990), but also has been not

related to support fulfillment (Krames, England, & Flett, 1988), not related to support receiving

(Butler, Giordano, & Neren, 1985), and inversely associated with apparent support (Burda,

Vaux, & Schill, 1984). We consider this is due to the breakdown to disentangle agency from

unmitigated agency. The theoretical predictions for the associations of agency to social support

outcomes are not clear, while the predictions for unmitigated agency are comprehensible.

An individual who is alert on the self to the barring of others is not likely to have pleasing

relationships with other community. In the same way, the relationships of communion to

psychological distress are not consistent. We consider this is due to the crash to disentangle

communion from unmitigated communion. Communion is usually not linked to psychological

distress nor has a tiny depressing relation to distress (Helgeson, 1994). By contrast, unmitigated

communion is associated to higher distress, to a certain extent because such people become

excessively involved in others‘ troubles, taking on others‘ distress as their own (Fritz &

Helgeson, 1998; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998).

The put up of unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion are discrete from agency

and communion and cannot be compact to some mishmash of agency and communion. That is,

unmitigated agency is not only high agency and low communion. An individual who scores
 4

elevated on agency and short on communion could be self-governing and self-confident but not

principally emotional or helpful. This is not comparable to the features of unmitigated agency—

arrogant, greedy, and hostile. While agency and communion is expansive dimension of

personality, unmitigated agency is a precise personality trait that integrates some features of

agency (focus on the self) whereas keenly releasing communal traits (focusing on others). In the

same way, unmitigated communion is not only high communion and low agency. For example,

high communion and low agency involve an emotional and helpful individual who is not self-

governing or self-assured. This is not the same to someone who places others‘ desires sooner

than one‘s own or gets excessively involved in others‘ problems. Do not get the wrong

impression our point: someone who scores high on communion and low on agency could score

high on unmitigated communion, but it is not essentially the case.

1.1.2 Unmitigated Communion

Unmitigated communion (UC) is a personality trait that defined as a focus on others to

the elimination of the self (Helgeson, 1994; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998). Unmitigated Communion

is describing by two most important components. First, the Unmitigated Communion personality

reveal a forceful focus on others and relationships. Second, the Unmitigated Communion

individual neglects the self and has complexity asserting his or her desires, maybe as a result of

Overinvolvement in relationships. Unmitigated Communion was developed from two basic

personality dimensions first put forward by Bakan (1966), that is to say communion and agency.
 5

In their simplest appearance, communion symbolizes concerns about interpersonal

relationships and reproduces a center of attention on others while agency symbolizes concerns

about autonomous achievement and reproduce a focus on self (Helgeson, 1994). Unmitigated

Communion is an intense form of communion not mitigated by agency (Helgeson, 1994;

Helgeson, 2003b; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998).

Consequently, two middle characteristics of the construct of Unmitigated Communion

are the leaning to subject matter oneself to the demands of others and the leaning to neglect

oneself. In adding up, Unmitigated Communion was exposed to be separate from communion in

conditions of rotating to others for self-evaluative information. Together these three

characteristics emerge to dispose individuals high in Unmitigated Communion to practice low

self-esteem and high levels of depressive symptoms (Helgeson, 2003b; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998).

Based on Unmitigated Communion‘s distinctiveness, we will disagree that enacted support will

be negatively connected with depressive symptoms in low Unmitigated Communion but not high

Unmitigated Communion persons.

1.3.3 Role of Unmitigated Communion

Based on the three characteristics of Unmitigated Communion illustrate above

(Overinvolvement in others‘ troubles, self-neglect and externalized self-evaluation), we explain

three causes to be expecting that Unmitigated Communion may transform the connection

between support terms and providers‘ depressive symptoms.

 6

1.1.4 Types of Unmitigated Communion

1.1.4.1 Overinvolvement

One key characteristic of unmitigated Communion people is that they have a tendency to

become excessively concerned in others‘ issues and take others‘ issues as their own. According

the price of caring hypothesis (Kessler, McLeod, & Wethington, 1985), providing support could

also be distressing if the supplier is showing emotion overinvolved with the recipient.

Specifically, if a supplier becomes excessively committed others, an agent or downside that

happens to somebody else could also be construed by high unmitigated Communion people as

their own personal event. The upper the extent of unmitigated Communion, the lot

of probably it's that people excessively have interaction in others‘ events and therefore the lot

of powerfully they'll be tormented by others‘ issues. Indeed, a strong positive association exists

between unmitigated Communion and negative adjustment indicators comparable to feeling

too accountable for serving to another person and having intrusive and frequent

thoughts regarding others‘ issues (Aube´, 2008; Fritz & Helgeson, 1998; Helgeson & Fritz,

1999).

Furthermore, high Unmitigated Communion persons emerge to be more powerfully

predisposed by stressful events that happen to others than individuals low in Unmitigated

Communion (Helgeson, 2003b; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998). Taken collectively, in high

Unmitigated Communion persons, the positive outcome of providing support might be

counteracted by the intrusiveness of other‘s troubles. Therefore, we expected support terms not

to be connected with depressive symptoms in high Unmitigated Communion individuals. By

 7

distinguish; low Unmitigated Communion individuals are less leaning to take others‘ troubles as

their own. Therefore, in the midst of support providers low in Unmitigated Communion, we

expected support terms to be negatively correlated in the company of depressive symptoms.

Overinvolvement in relationships might lead to distress. Persons who score high in

Unmitigated Communion report higher stages of anxiety and depression in equally cross-

sectional (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998) and longitudinal studies (Fritz, 2000, Helgeson, 1993;

Helgeson & Fritz, 1996). There are little facts that high levels of distress are a result of

overinvolvement in relationships. A cross-sectional study establish that overinvolvement in

relationships mediated the relation of Unmitigated Communion to depression (Fritz & Helgeson,

1998). A longitudinal study of adolescents with diabetes bring into being that the force of

relationship stressors mediated the relation of Unmitigated Communion to boost in psychological

distress over time (Helgeson & Fritz, 1996).

1.1.4.2 Self-neglect

The second reason to expect that Unmitigated Communion might modify the association

between support provision and providers‘ depressive symptoms is drawn from another feature of

Unmitigated Communion, particularly self-neglect. The lot of people area unit characterized by

Unmitigated Communion, the stronger they feel to blame for others‘ desires and also the a lot

of seemingly they fail to note, attend to, or rank their own desires and symptoms (Helgeson,

2003b; Helgeson& Fritz, 1998). Indeed, many studies have shown positive associations between

Unmitigated Communion and indicators of self-neglect, corresponding to difficulties declarative

 8

one‘s desires, being exploitable, inhibiting expressive style to avoid conflict with others, acting

against ones desires and withdrawal (Buss, 1990; Fritz & Helgeson, 1998; Helgeson & Fritz,

1999).

Furthermore, Unmitigated Communion was found to be related to a scarcity of self-care

activities, together with poor health behavior in viscus patients (Fritz, 2000; Helgeson & Fritz,

1999) and in ladies with breast cancer (Helgeson, 2003a), and missing categories and

not learning enough owing to serving to a lover in faculty students (Helgeson & Fritz, 2000).

Such neglecting of self represents another value of caring (Kessler, 1985), in this the interference

of taking care of others with taking care of oneself might adversely have an effect

on support suppliers. Hence, in high Unmitigated Communion people, the positive impact of

providing support may additionally be counteracted by the neglect of their own desires.

In different words, this method too results in the expectation of support provision to be unrelated

to depressive symptoms in high Unmitigated Communion people. Again, we tend to expected

providing support to be negatively related with depressive symptoms in support suppliers low

in Unmitigated Communion as a result of low Unmitigated Communion people don't tend to

neglect their own desires whereas serving to others.

1.3.4.3 Externalized self-evaluation

The third reason to expect the moderating role of Unmitigated Communion bears in its

cognitive features that are key to self-esteem. As mentioned above, Unmitigated Communion has

been found to be characterized by relatively low esteem of the self (Fritz, 2000; Fritz &

Helgeson, 1998; Helgeson, 2003b; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998, for a review see Helgeson, 1994).
 9

According to Helgeson (2003b), this lack of a positive sense of self stems from

Unmitigated Communion persons‘ tendency to base their self-evaluation on what others think of

them (labeled externalized self-perception by Jack and Dill, 1992). Indeed, studies of adolescents

attending a pre-college programme and undergraduate students have provided empirical evidence

indicating that Unmitigated Communion was associated with judging the self against others‘

opinions (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998; Hennig & Walker, 2008). Such use of externalized standards

for self-evaluation is especially troublesome because Unmitigated Communion is also related to

the belief that others view the self negatively (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998). The combination of an

externalized self-evaluation and the belief that others hold negative opinions of the self may

make individuals characterized by Unmitigated Communion vulnerable to low self-esteem and

subsequent depressive symptoms.

For example, negative events within one‘s personal relationships had more emotional

impact on individuals high in Unmitigated Communion relative to individuals low in

Unmitigated Communion (Nagurney, 2008; Reynolds, 2006). Such events (e.g. being criticized

by a friend) can be interpreted as disapproval and rejection of the self, and thus confirm the idea

that one is perceived negatively by others. This can be expected to cause depressive symptoms

especially in those who use others‘ opinions for self-evaluation (i.e. high Unmitigated

Communion individuals). Individuals high in Unmitigated Communion may view their helping

behavior as a way to enhance others‘ views of themselves (Helgeson, 1994). However, exactly

because of their strong focus on others‘ opinions for self-evaluation and the belief that these

others think negatively of them, this is unlikely to be successful. Our argument draws a parallel

with the sentiment override process proposed with respect to the interpretation of spousal
 10

behaviour (Weiss, 1980). That is, the interpretation of the behaviour of one‘s partner depends on

one‘s global affection or disaffection for him or her, rather than the partner‘s objective behaviour

(For example, Hawkins, Carrere, & Gottman, 2002). In a similar vein, high Unmitigated

Communion individuals‘ positive supportive behaviour may have little success in increasing

their self-esteem, and subsequently, in decreasing their depressive symptoms, because their

overall belief those others think negatively of them will override the positive effect of their

support provision.

Even though a supportive act may initially reduce depressive symptoms, this is not

expected to have a long lasting effect. As Helgeson (1994) has put it ‗. . . the unmitigated

communion individual is engaged in a struggle to increase self-esteem through relationships;

because their expectations are so high, however, their goals are unattainable, and self-esteem

remains low‘. Individuals low in Unmitigated Communion, who by definition is not focused so

much on the opinions of others, will focus more on internal standards of evaluation. Phrased

differently, they will be inclined to judge themselves on the basis of their own behaviour rather

than on what others think of them. For them, doing something good for others (i.e. supporting

others) signals that they are a nice and social person. In sum, only among low Unmitigated

Communion individuals, providing support was hypothesized to be negatively related to

depressive symptoms.
 11

Coping strategies

1.2.1 Definition and Background

Coping is defined as thoughts and behaviors that people use to manage the inner and

external needs of conditions which might be appraised as worrying (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Coping research is important because it may help provide an explanation for why a few people

fare better than others while encountering pressure in their lives. Factors including persona, way

of life, earlier enjoy and environment make a contribution to a person‘s response. Not like these

different elements, but, coping lends itself to cognitive and behavioral intervention (Folkman &

Moskowitz, 2004). This lets in the person to develop strategies and strategies to cope with

situations that is probably taken into consideration worrying.

Lazarus and Folkman (1981) have defined coping as the behavioral and cognitive efforts

people use to manipulate needs related to disturbing situations. Consistent with these authors, the

coping strategies decided on via a character are precise to conditions and may alternate over the

years. Problem targeted coping, taken into consideration an adaptive coping strategy, consists of

direct efforts to alter or control the supply of the hassle (e.g. planning approaches to remedy the

problem, locating fantastic ways to remedy the problem Folkunan & Lazarus, 1980). In

evaluation, emotional coping consists of efforts to adjust emotions via approaches such as

rumination, blaming oneself, and venting of negative feelings. avoidant coping consists of efforts

to lessen emotional touch with the demanding state of affairs (e.g. denial, avoidance,

disengagement previous research with young and middle-aged adults has indicated that hassle-

targeted coping strategies are associated with mental fitness, whereas emotional and avoidance
 12

coping techniques are related to psychological distress (ben-zur,2005: Ben-Zur, Gilhar, & Lev,

2001), high tiers of melancholy (Li, Leluzer& Greenberg, 1999) and bad have an effect on (Ben-

Zur, 2002).

Coping refers to non-stop cognitive and behavioral method addressing in addition inner

and outside demands perceived as disturbing and/or exceeding a person‘s coping sources

(Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Coping Strategies are thought to mediate the connection among

stress and adjustment, with some strategies helping the man or woman to overcome a stressor,

ensuing in progressed adjustment and results (Cooper, Katona, Orrell, & Livingston, 2008;

Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Papastavrou., 2011).

While coping strategies were up to that time classified into two dimensions, ‗problem-

focused‘ strategies frequently connected with more positive conclusion and ‗emotion focused‘

strategies linked to more negative result (Cooper, 2008; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984;

Papastavrou, 2011), a new move toward of engagement and disengagement coping has

additionally been cautioned (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010; Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007).

According to this method, emotion-centered coping patterns have to no longer be labeled

as inherently maladaptive. It is cautioned that engagement strategies, together with active and

engaged strategies, additionally encompass emotional coping techniques, together with lively

processing and expression of emotion (e.g., advantageous reframing, recognition, seeking assist,

trouble-fixing, and expressing emotions), may additionally serve an adaptive value beneath

certain pressure instances. Disengaged coping strategies, in assessment, are possibly to disengage
 13

the man or woman from the individual or environment transaction (e.g., wishful thinking,

avoidance, self-criticism, social withdrawal) (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010; Connor-Smith &

Flachsbart, 2007). The literature discovered that disengagement in place of engagement

techniques addressing strain have been related to multiplied anxiety, burden, and melancholy in

caregivers of people with dementia (Garcia-Alberca, Cruz, Lara, Garrido, Gris, 2012). Scholars

found that engagement/lively and disengagement/passive coping techniques have been extensive

mediators in the caregiver burden and the depression rating dating (Garcia-Alberca, Cruz, Lara,

Garrido, Gris, 2012; Mausbach, 2012).

1.2.2 Types of Coping Strategies

1.2.2.1 Emotional Coping

A recent meta-analysis examining the relation among coping efforts and psychological

and physical health in young and middle-elderly adults indicated that signs of depression are

exceptionally correlated with self-reports of emotional coping (e.g. ctiucizeur blame myself,

'rake my frustrations. Out at the human beings closest to me: penley, tomaka, & wiebe, 2002).

That is constant with studies suggesting that middle-elderly individuals experiencing mood

disorders i.e. foremost depression, dysthymia) are susceptible to file the usage of emotional

coping techniques to deal with existence stressors (Folkman & Lazarus, 1986). Some

investigators have discovered that personality sickness prognosis is related to much less trouble-

targeted and greater avoidant and emotional coping (Watson & Sinha, 1999); but, this line of

research has now not been prolonged to older adults. Studies also have indicated that reports of

using emotional coping strategies are positively correlated with suicidal ideation suicide tries and
 14

self-suggested chance of destiny suicidal behavior in clinical and non-scientific samples

D'Zurilla, Chang, Nottingham, & Faccini, 1998; Edwards& Holden, 2001). In a current study of

center-age and older grownup male clinical inpatients, Marusic and Goodwin (2006) found that

suicidal ideation become associated with self-reports of excessive emotional coping and decrease

rational and detached coping techniques.

1.2.2.2 Avoidance Coping

In addition, avoidance coping (i.e. pretending that not anything is inaccurate, day

dreaming, etc.) has been found to be extra often endorsed than problem-targeted coping

techniques amongst moderately to significantly depressed older adults with physical

contamination or barriers (Hiv-Fantastic: Heckman, Kochman, Sikkema, &Kalichman,1999).

Catanzaro Horaney and Creasey (1995) assessed older adults to determine whether or not

particular coping techniques (e.g. avoidance coping) are associated with poor temper regulation

expectations (i.e. the expectation that a selected behavior or thought will relieve bad temper).

The outcomes of this take a look at indicated that poor temper regulation expectancies were

inversely correlated with use of avoidance coping strategies. This suggests that folks who file

keeping off problems also are much more likely to consider that they cannot adjust their temper

in an adaptive manner. several studies additionally have determined that, amongst older adults,

individuals who suggest mind of suicide or planned self harm are more likely to apply escape or

avoidance coping strategies compared to people who did not report mind of suicide self harm

(Kalichman, Heckman ,Kochman, Sikkema & Bergholte 2000; Marusic &Goodwin, 2006).
 15

1.2.2.3 Specific Coping Strategies

Now that we've examined common styles of coping, let us take a look at specific coping

strategies:

1.2.2.3.1 Active Coping

Taking steps to attempt to put off the stressor to improve its outcomes by way of

beginning direct action, increasing one‘s efforts and looking to cope in a scientific way. As an

instance checks stress for college students they actively accumulate the notes for education of

checks. On this manner they seeking to cope and conquer the stressor. Many students do very

energetic things to lessen the pressure or tension with the assist of active coping. Energetic

coping is the method of taking energetic steps to try to remove or dodge the stressor or to

ameliorate its outcomes. Active coping includes beginning direct movement, growing one's

efforts, and trying to execute a coping try in stepwise fashion. What we time period lively coping

may be very much like the middle of what Lazarus and Folkman (1984) and others term hassle

centered coping. We are, but, making numerous additional differences within the standard

category of trouble-targeted coping.

1.2.2.3.2 Planning

Considering the ways to address a stressor by means was of drawing motion strategies,

considering what steps to take and the way nice to address the hassle. Here college students or

person seeking to deal with planning, they made a plan or step smart action to conquer the

anxiety and remedy the actual problem that effecting them. Planning is thinking about a way to

deal with a stressor. Planning involves coming up with action techniques, considering what steps

to take and how pleasant to address the problem. This hobby simply is problem centered, but it
 16

differs conceptually from executing a hassle-targeted motion. Moreover, planning happens for

the duration of secondary appraisal, while active coping occurs in the course of the coping phase.

Occurs all through secondary appraisal, whereas that is energetic coping occurs at some stage in

the coping phase.

1.2.2.3.3 Suppression of Competing Activities

Suppressing includes competing activities with the view of concentrating more fully on

the task or threat handy. Suggest that person take additional movements to attempt to remove the

hassle and absolutely pay concentration to managing this hassle even if they necessary let

different things slide a touch. This coping approach may be very powerful and beneficial in

college students. Suppression of competing activities way putting other tasks apart, seeking to

keep away from becoming distracted by means of different events, even letting different things

slide, if essential, as a way to cope with the stressor.

1.2.2.3.4 Restraint Coping

Waiting till an appropriate opportunity to act provides itself, protecting oneself returned,

and no longer acting in advance. Here human being pressure himself to watch for the right time

to do something associated with trouble. They are looking to maintain off doing anything

approximately hassle till the state of affairs permits. Although restraint is regularly overlooked as

a capability coping strategy, it on occasion is a vital and useful response to stress.

 17

1.2.2.3.5 Seeking Social Support for Instrumental Reasons

In search of advice, help or records on the hassle to hand. Here individual attempts to get

solution approximately the hassle from others which have comparable studies. They are

attempting to learn from different enjoy and reduce the tension or strain.

1.2.2.3.6 Seeking Social Support for Emotional Reasons

Getting moral assist, sympathy or information on a trouble to hand. Requesting assist, or

locating emotional assist from circle of relative‘s participants or buddies, may be a powerful

manner of keeping emotional fitness in the course of a demanding duration.

1.2.2.3.7 Positive Reinterpretation and Growth

Handling distress emotions rather than coping with the stressor per semester.

Advantageous reinterpretation involves reappraising a demanding situation to peer it in a fine

light; put definitely, locating something accurate from something horrific. For that reason, the

meaning of an occasion is redefined to allow enjoy of superb emotion or health. it is an emotion-

targeted coping strategy which makes a specialty of handling the emotion associated with a

stressor, as opposed to handling the stressor in step with se. Sunzerath, Connelly, Albert and

Knebel (2001, p. 339) describe effective reinterpretation because the ‗highest quality subjective

outlook‘, that ‗acknowledges the realities of the illness, at the same time as focusing on the

tremendous aspects to 1‘s situation‘.

 18

1.2.2.3.8 Acceptance

Accept the truth of a worrying situation. Here human begin accept the truth and prevent

looking to doing anything. The alternative of denial is popularity. it is arguable that popularity is

a practical coping response, in that someone who accepts the truth of a disturbing situation would

appear to be someone who is engaged inside the try to address the state of affairs. Attractiveness

impinges on element of the coping system. Recognition of a stressor as real takes place in

primary appraisal. Reputation of a contemporary absence of energetic coping techniques relates

to secondary appraisal. One might count on reputation to be mainly important in occasions

wherein the stressor is something that ought to be accommodated to, rather than situations

wherein the stressor can without problems be changed.

1.2.2.3.9 Denial

Refuse to accept as true with that the stressor exists or trying to act as even though the

stressor isn't always real. Avoidance of the issue altogether may cause denying that a trouble

even exists. Denial is generally maintained via distractions, such as excessive alcohol

consumption, overworking, or napping greater than ordinary. Denial is relatively arguable. It is

frequently suggested that denial is beneficial, minimizing misery and thereby facilitating coping

(Breznitz, 1983; E Cohen & Lazarus, 1973; Wilson, 1981). Alternatively, it is able to be argued

that denial only creates additional troubles until the stressor can profitably be neglected. that is,

denying the fact of the occasion allows the occasion to become greater severe, thereby making

more hard the coping that eventually need to occur (Matthews, Siegel, Kuller, Thompson, &

Varat, 1983)
 19

1.2.2.3.10 Mental Disengagement

Using alternative sports, such as games, sporting events, watching movies and consuming

alcohol to take one‘s mind off a problem. Mental disengagement occurs via a huge kind of sports

that serve to distract the character from thinking about the behavioral measurement or aim with

which the stressor is meddling. Strategies that mirror mental disengagement include using

opportunity sports to take one's thoughts Offa problem (an inclination opposite to the

suppression of competing sports), daydreaming, escaping via sleep, or break out by immersion in

television. It ought to be referred to that those techniques are greater numerous than those that

make up the opposite coping classes underneath dialogue. It consequently can be useful to

consider the conceptual class of mental disengagement as forming a "more than one act

criterion" (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974) in place of as being a unitary magnificence of conduct.

1.2.2.3.11 Humor

Humor is a form of communication that is judged to be amusing and makes others laugh.

Pointing out the amusing aspects of the problem at hand, or "positive reframing," is thought to

help deal with small failures.

1.2.2.3.12 Focus on and Venting of Emotions

Venting is an exquisite manner to launch suppressed feelings, feelings, and thoughts.

Keeping stuff bottled up never makes things higher and may cause heavy stress or even a

frightened breakdown. There are some blessings of venting your feelings, feelings, and thoughts

like as less bottled up anger, sadness, & frustration, feelings of relief, let‘s others in & in most
 20

cases. They can help, get advice from Support, express yourself and clear your conscience.

Venting is a first-rate way to alleviate built up anxiety and could make you experience

higher instantly. Except you vent in a few shape or any other you may most effective be bottling

up feelings and feelings that can lead to extra troubles down the road. Venting doesn‘t usually

should be to every other individual. It may without difficulty be written down on paper or stated

out load whilst no one is round. I‘ll inform you greater afterward in this article about strategies

and approaches to vent, maintain studying to find out more.

1.2.2.3.13 Religious Coping

There are categories of faith coping one is fine spiritual coping and 2nd is terrible non

secular coping. Those who use fine spiritual coping are in all likelihood to be searching for

spiritual assist and look for that means in a stressful state of affairs. Poor non secular coping

expresses battle, question, and doubt regarding problems of God and faith.

1.2.2.3.14 Behavioral Disengagement

Strategy that try and avoid annoying situations as opposed to solve them and reduce the

efforts to deal actively with a stressor. Here individual decreasing one‘s effort to cope with the

stressor, even giving up the try and achieve desires with which the stressor is meddling.

Behavioral disengagement is reflected in phenomena that are additionally recognized with

phrases including helplessness. In theory, behavioral disengagement is most likely to occur when

humans assume poor coping out come.

 21

1.2.2.3.15 Substance Use

It is supposed that people are starting to make use of drugs to cope with stress on a daily

basis for the reason that they do not found any other alternative. On the other hand pressures

promote the use of drugs and trim down the motivation to stop drug use. There are dissimilar

standpoint to interpret patterns of substance use and abuse. From a cognitive-behavioral

viewpoint model of stress-coping araised (Wills & Shiffman, 1985) and planned that people

frequently use alcohol as a coping response to pressure of stress, where it is used to get better

positive have an effect on or reduction painful feelings.

1.2.3 Ways of Coping Strategies

In line with Anspaugh (2003), all occasions in life introduced about a response, but there

have been various methods via which humans reacted or replied to them. To them, coping with

pressure is the try and manage or address pressure of their view, coping does not always result in

success. They remark that successful coping consists of turning into aware about incidents and

conditions that one perceives as being traumatic and recognizing stressors approach being aware

about how your frame responds to stress to Anspaugh (2003) dealing successfully with pressure

may require the use of specific sorts of techniques. In studying the technique of coping with

pressure, a measure, referred to as ―methods of coping‖ turned into evolved (Folkman &

Lazarus, 1985). Embedded within the ―ways of coping‖, in step with Carver, Scheier, and

Weintraub, (1989), is a distinction among two main kinds of coping specifically, hassle-centered

coping and emotion-targeted coping. Hassle-targeted coping seeks to remedy problems or change

the supply of pressure. However, emotion-targeted coping pursuits to reduce or manage the

emotional distress associated with the situation. Folkman and Lazarus (1980) as referred to in
 22

Carver (1989) are of the opinion that despite the fact that maximum stressors elicit both sorts of

coping, problem-targeted coping tends to predominate while people feel that something

constructive may be achieved. Emotion-targeted coping tends to predominate while human

beings feel that the stressor must be endured.

Moos (1986) as cited in Carver (1989) talked about that the hobby in the technique of

coping with strain had grown dramatically. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) as referred to in Carver

(1989) argued that stress changed into made up of three strategies, particularly, primary

appraisal, which was the manner of perceiving a chance to oneself, secondary appraisal which

became the process of bringing to thoughts a potential response to the danger, and coping, which

mentioned the manner of executing that reaction. In the view of Lazarus and Folkman (1984):

even though these 3 procedures are easily described as linear sequence, they do no longer occur

in an unbroken move.

For that reason, the final results of one process may also result in a preceding method and

that the whole set of strategies may additionally again and again cycle in a disturbing transaction.

Miller (1982) in suggesting ways of managing strain indicated that relaxation, respiration,

refuting illogical or irrational thoughts, assertiveness, time control, keeping good nutrition,

workout, recreational sports and converting ordinary routines should go an extended manner to

assist people manage traumatic situations they went through. Ansah (2006) additionally talked

about that expert counseling have to be introduced to reduce pressure and tension which

impacted negatively on productivity. in a take a look at performed by Amran, it turned into

 23

located out that B.ED TESL (coaching English as a 2d language) foundation cohort three college

students desired emotion-targeted style of coping with pressure to problem-focused style.

Underneath the hassle-centered style, they realized that the approach maximum used

changed into accepting obligation, even as the least used became confrontive coping. They

concluded that the students coped with stress by using acknowledging their roles inside the

trouble. Beneath the emotion-targeted style, Amran observed that nice reappraisals approach

changed into the most used even as the least method used turned into break out-avoidance. it

turned into concluded from their observe that scholars managed pressure through creating a

positive meaning in phrases of personal increase and feeling that the stress they went via should

exchange them in a terrific manner.

1.2.4 Individual Differences

One factor of the studies stated here changed into a try to discover the viable existence of

character variations in desired coping patterns by means of the use of the cope gadgets in a

dispositional layout. We regard the findings provided on that question to be a beneficial starting,

despite the fact that they simply do no longer represent a definitive announcement at the function

of man or woman difference inside the coping technique. There are, but, extra issues to take into

account as well. An essential problem is how pleasant to construe man or woman variations in

coping strategies.
 24

As we referred to on the outset, some theorists have assumed that differences in coping

fashion are intrinsically tied to persona variations. The technique taken right here, alternatively,

assumes best that humans have a tendency to adopt certain coping procedures as relatively stable

possibilities. Solid preferences may derive from persona, or they will expand for different

motives. We do no longer deny the capacity significance of personality developments in coping;

certainly, we've got studied the role of one such trait ourselves (Scheier 1986). We do endorse,

however, that there may be merit in studying coping options aside from character tendencies.

Whether developments or coping tendencies will become greater crucial, or whether or not each

contribute to a success coping, must be a topic for similarly research.

 25

Thought Suppression

1.3.1 Definition

For over twenty years researchers have exposed that there are unforeseen consequences

when a human being actively tries to avoid certain thoughts. First, you will start thinking on the

subject of the thought you are demanding to avoid more. Second, if the thought is on the subject

of a behavior, you increase the possibility of appealing in that behavior. In short, escaping makes

you less able to control what you assume and what you perform. Additional research is required

to explore why thought escaping is such a fertile self-control strategy when all presented facts

spots to it‘s contradict perceptive consequences. (James Erskine and George Georgiou)

How many periods have you refuse to accept thinking on the subject of something

because you were anxious you might do it? A bit possible was unthinkable or merely mildly

needless. For example, you can attempt not to think on the subject of an attractive colleague in

try to avoid difficult catch up, or you can try not to think on the subject of crème brûlée when on

a diet. But what is the penalty of these avoidances? Do they work, or do they in some way drive

us towards the very take action we are attempting to avoid? This question has been exposing

within the appearance of classic literature. For example Dostoyevsky‘s work is replete with

samples of standard folks that felt the urge to act in a convinced way – the young man walking in

the city centre alone at night entertaining thoughts of visiting a prostitute that he finds abhorrent.

He suppresses these thoughts in an attempt to avoid the do something, yet moments later on he

come across himself at the coquette‘s door. These phenomena form the center of attention of this

article: we will assess how thought suppression may possibly guide us to become our own worst

enemy. Wegner, D.M. (2009).

 26

The suppression with targeted distraction strategy is similar with the technique hired to

suppress inside the ―think-no think‖ challenge, which turned into currently developed by using

Anderson and Collaborators (Anderson & Inexperienced, 2001; Anderson 2004) to examine the

inhibition of undesirable reminiscences. In the first segment of this challenge, topics are

instructed to take a look at a listing of phrase pairs which can be emotionally impartial. then, in

the course of the assume-no think section, individuals are provided with one member of a pair

and asked either to keep in mind and think about the related reaction (reply circumstance) or to

prevent the related phrase from coming into focus at all (suppression condition). In the end,

participants‘ recollections are examined after a brief delay.

Anderson and associates confirmed that suppression triggered widespread forgetting, that

is, do not forget of suppressed gadgets changed into worse than baseline gadgets (baseline

objects are studied pairs that are not offered for the duration of the think-no think phase). These

findings recommend that people can inhibit an unwanted memory at the same time as

confronting reminders of the memory they are seeking to suppress. Some next studies employing

the think-no think paradigm have provided only partial guide for the findings of Anderson

(Algarabel, Luciano, & Martínez, 2006; Joorman, Hertel, Brozovich, & Gotlib, 2005; Wessel,

Wetzels, Jelicic, & Merckelbach, 2005).

In a current examine, Hertel and Calcaterra (2005), employing the think-no think

paradigm have shown that once substitute goals are supplied at some stage in the suppression (no

suppose) section, the extent of forgetting is higher. Those authors instructed a collection of

undergraduates to examine a listing of adjective-noun pairs. Then the adjectives were

 27

administered as cues for recalling 1/2 of the nouns and cues for the suppressing the alternative

1/2. There were two suppression situations. a few topics have been informed to see the cue (the

reminder), but to keep away from saying or considering the associated response phrase (unaided

suppression circumstance), whereas different topics have been instructed to reflect on

consideration on experimentally supplied nouns as a way to avoid the original associated

reaction (aided suppression condition).

Ultimately, all participants have been asked to consider the original response noun for

each cue. Results revealed a sizeable inhibitory impact most effective inside the aided

suppression circumstance. additionally, the ones individuals from the unaided suppression

circumstance who spontaneously hired focused distraction then suggested tiers of forgetting

similar to the ones acquired within the aided circumstance, which is also an crucial indicator of

the effectiveness of thought substitution, that is, suppression focusing the attention in a reminder

is feasible, however the availability of a single distracter increases the suppression effects. The

first try to adapt the type of suppression proposed with the aid of Anderson and collaborators to

concept suppression research became currently made by means of Luciano and Algarabel (in

press).

1.3.2 Early Work on Thought Suppression

Thought suppression normally refers back to the act of deliberately looking to rid the

mind of unwanted thoughts (Wegner, 1989). In early investigations researchers confirmed that

the suppression of a particular concept regularly resulted in the subsequent increased go back of

the unwanted thought, a phenomenon termed the ‗rebound effect‘ (Wegner, 1987). This basic
 28

effect has been replicated on many activities, and a extra latest meta-analysis indicates the

rebound impact is powerful (Ambramowitz, 2001; Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000). Therefore, there

is currently a fashionable recognition of the view that notion suppression does now not paintings

as a approach for controlling one‘s mind, and if anything makes one extra vulnerable to

undesirable intrusive mind.

For instance, after looking a disturbing news item, I can also try to suppress mind

approximately this disturbing photos. however, the in all likelihood outcome of this will be that

I‘m able to think about the photos greater now not much less, and that I can also even begin to

experience obsessed (Markowitz & Purdon, 2008). Certainly, due to the common intrusiveness

of officially suppressed thoughts, suppression has been implicated inside the potential upkeep

and causes of a wide type of mental health troubles such as submit-disturbing pressure ailment,

obsessive compulsive disorder, tension and despair (Erskine, 2007; Purdon, 1999; Wegner &

Zanakos, 1994). In an associated vein, Freud (1901/1990) in his traditional EBook the

psychopathology of regular existence described moments when humans blurt out matters that

they're trying to suppress. Critically he noticed that the suppression (or repression in his

terminology) was closely implicated in these later acts of vocal impulsivity.

1.3.3 The Phenomenon of Suppression

No longer all people believes within the effectiveness of suppression, of route, but many

do, for instance, the ones scoring excessive on the thought manage ideals factor of a

questionnaire designed to assess ideals approximately the technique and outcome of wondering

(Metacognitive Beliefs Questionnaire; MCBQ; Clark, Purdon, & Wang, 2003). Usual gadgets on
 29

the questionnaire include ―i need to be able to advantage whole control over my thoughts if i

exercising enough will power.‖ but as the white undergo studies discovered, that is normally not

the case. Alternatively, suppression can result in an exacerbation of the very thoughts one is

trying to suppress. Wegner (1994) offered an idea of ―ironic techniques‖ to account for this

effect. The concept holds that tactics are involved in suppression: an effortful and conscious

working process that diverts interest far from unwanted mind, and an handy and subconscious

ironic monitoring system that both keeps vigilance for occurrences in recognition of the

unwanted notion, and triggers similarly action of the running method if the undesirable concept

seems in consciousness. These two processes work hand in hand to make sure that undesirable

thoughts stay out of doors of cognizance.

Paradoxically, however, by way of maintaining vigilance for the unwanted thought, the

monitoring machine facilitates guarantee that the undesirable thought never turns into dormant.

aspects of this dual manner mechanism of suppression are especially relevant to

psychopathology: first, for the reason that working process is effortful, suppression is

psychologically expensive (Barrett, Tugade, & Engle, 2004), and 2nd, if suppression is

attempted underneath conditions of competing cognitive load, the effortful running manner is

impaired and for this reason the handy tracking technique begins to usher within the very

thoughts which are targeted by the suppression try, thereby resulting in an ironic go back of the

undesirable notion.
 30

There may be now sizable evidence for the ironic go back of undesirable thoughts.

Within the original notion suppression experiments, Wegner et al. (1987) determined that once

duration of concept suppression, humans advised to stop suppressing the idea and instead to start

considering it said more intrusions of the concept that happened without earlier suppression. This

―rebound effect‖ has in view that been found repeatedly (Abramowitz, Tolin, & Avenue, 2001;

Rassin, 2005; Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000). Subsequent research revealed, in accord with the

ironic process principle, which this effect is mainly probably to occur beneath conditions of

mental load. In both medical and non-scientific populations, the undesirable idea is faster to

return to recognition at the same time as its far being actively suppressed.

Further to empirical support for the ironic, intrusive, go back of unwanted mind, there

also exists proof indicating issue disengaging from these thoughts. As an instance, Wegner and

Erber (1992) discovered that people suppressing a concept below cognitive load showed

interference with the assignment of shade-naming in a changed Stroop (1935) paradigm.

Remarkably, this interference become even more than the interference located when human

beings were been concentrating on the thought under load. Those effects imply that humans

couldn't disengage interest to get away from the unwanted idea, and this problem became extra

mentioned with the imposition of cognitive load. This hyper accessibility of suppressed mind has

also been discovered again and again with clinical and non-medical samples (Arndt, Greenberg,

Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997; Klein, 2007; Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997; Web

Page, Locke, & Trio, 2005).

 31

The aggregate of an ironic, intrusive, return of undesirable thoughts and issue of get away

from them represents a sure asymmetry in the manner unwanted thoughts are related to different

thoughts in our associative networks: we find ourselves being reminded of a selected undesirable

concept by way of maximum the whole thing that involves thoughts, however the concept itself

seems to remind us of not anything extra than our desire to get rid of it from recognition. This

uncommon asymmetry in the manner undesirable mind are related to other thoughts become

tested in a recent study (Najmi & Wegner, 2008). Participants who had been requested to

suppress a idea or to concentrate on it finished a undertaking assessing the impact of priming on

reaction time to word/nonword judgments (associative priming lexical selection challenge).

Consequences indicated that suppression below cognitive load produced uneven priming:

priming with the accomplice of a suppressed word speeded response time to the suppressed

phrase, however priming with a suppressed word did no longer velocity reaction time to related

words.

This indicates that suppression induces an unusual shape of cognitive accessibility

wherein movement of activation closer to the suppressed notion from friends is facilitated

however motion of activation far from the suppressed thought to friends is undermined.

Accordingly, suppression of an undesirable idea ironically will increase its go back whilst

precluding different associated thoughts from getting into recognition. This belief that

suppressed thoughts are a cognitive dead-quit of types would possibly properly provide an

explanation for the phenomenon of perseverative wondering that characterizes a big selection of

psychological issues. (Najmi & Wegner, 2008).

 32

1.3.4 Causes of Thought Suppression

There are numerous causes of notion suppression someday it turned into happen any

demanding or annoying event. Suppressing thoughts regularly ends in their hyper accessibility in

mind, and people who suppress thoughts of stressful events enjoy depression and anxiety. Enjoy

of mental sickness is often associated with painful mind and feelings and as a result will

normally inspire suppression as a reaction (Najmi & Wegner, in press; Wegner, 1989).

Maximum early studies on intrusive and obsessive mind operated under the assumption

that suppression is constantly reactive on this way, and so did not develop the complementary

opportunity—that suppression may itself set off the intrusive return of the suppressed thought.

interest changed into attracted to this paradoxical impact of suppression via the ―white undergo‖

studies in our lab—wherein humans couldn‘t stop taking into account a white endure in five

minutes of attempting (Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987).

1.3.5 Effects of Thought Suppression on one’s Perception of Actions

One final observe needs to be made of thought suppression effects and time. Broadly

speaking, you suppress a thought and then get on with something else and the suppressed idea

returns later. The outcomes with behaviour reflect this pattern – you suppress a concept related to

behaviour and the behaviour rebounds later. This is in particular pernicious, as it does no longer

permit individuals to note the causal significance of idea suppression inside the later occurrence

of the rebounded behaviour. As an instance, if I close a door and on the same time a mild comes

on in the room, I may additionally understand my final of the door to have caused the light to go

on, despite the fact that I recognize that the 2 items aren't usually causally associated. but with
 33

notion suppression the go back of the suppressed concept or behaviour occurs after the

suppression has finished, which does no longer allow me to look how my earlier act of

suppression has ‗caused‘ the later return. (Wegner and Erskine 2003)

A further locating of be aware within the thought suppression literature suggests that

thought suppression can also affect what humans perceive as having caused the action that they

have achieved. as a consequence, Wegner and Erskine (2003) had members carry out simple

regular movements, which include lifting a brick, at the same time as either considering the

action, suppressing thinking about the movement, or considering whatever they wished.

Seriously whilst individual‘s idea about the action whilst doing it they felt like that they had

acted more willfully and brought on the movement to a extra degree. Once they suppressed

considering what they have been doing they reported feeling just like the motion became now

not resulting from them however simply befell. There lies the rub of concept suppression: it

seems a specifically dangerous way to try to control you.

1.3.6 Individual Differences

People range in their natural tendency to suppress undesirable mind. Wegner & Zanakos

(1994) advanced the white undergo suppression stock as a self-record degree of the tendency to

suppress thoughts. The degree suggests accurate inner and temporal reliability and correlates

sensibly with other person-distinction variables, which includes obsession, depression,

dissociation, and anxiety (Muris & Merckelbach 1997, Muris et al 1996, Van den Hout

1996,Wegner & Zanakos 1994).

 34

Even though correlation ambiguities prevent conclusions about causality, those studies

show that folks who report a particularly robust choice for suppression are especially apt to be

afflicted by recurrent intrusive mind. There are some warning signs that this tendency to rely on

idea suppression may also have its origins in youth, in which sure parental practices are apt to

sell avoidant coping (Cooper 1998, Eisenberg 1998, Fraley & Shaver 1997,Wenzlaff &

Eisenberg 1998). In a related vein, recent work suggests that the capability to inhibit undesirable

mind diminishes in old age (Jacoby 1999, Von Hippel 1999).

Kelly & Nauta (1997) diagnosed any other person distinction applicable to the final

results of concept suppression. The investigators discovered that notion-suppression commands

made individuals high in reactance feel especially out of manage and disturbed by their intrusive

thoughts. The investigators recommend that being motivated to restore one‘s freedom may

additionally ironically leave one feeling extra out of control following tried suppression. a

suppression-relevant man or woman distinction of every other sort has emerged from latest

studies related to hypnosis. Bowers &woody (1996) informed excessive- and low-hypnotizable

individuals to suppress thoughts in a ordinary country and in a hypnotic country.

The outcomes confirmed that each excessive- and coffee-hypnotizable individuals skilled

tremendous suppression-associated intrusions after they have been in a normal, waking state.

While hypnotized, but, the range of intrusions mentioned by distinctly hypnotizable members

dropped to almost 0, whereas the extent of intrusive mind of low-hypnotizable individuals

remained high. Investigators discovered a similar pattern of outcomes with a cognitive load

manipulation (King & Council 1998) and with pain tolerance because the structured variable
 35

(Eastwood 1998). This studies indicates that distinctly suggestible individuals can be capable of

suppress intellectual states with impunity while induced to accomplish that beneath hypnosis.

The motives for this superior suppression potential are doubtful and will include factors together

with susceptibility to experimenter-demand results, reporting biases, or unusual mental-manage

techniques.

1.3.7 Overcoming the Behavioral Effects of Thought Suppression

Importantly, the study does advise numerous promising avenues for minimizing the

capability poor behavioral outcomes of thought suppression. First of all, one needs to avoid the

usage of notion suppression in times in which one is making an attempt to govern behaviour.

This is specifically pertinent whilst attempting to manipulate behaviors which includes smoking,

excessive alcohol or food intake, as these are probably areas wherein concept suppression will

characteristic as a control approach. as an instance Erskine and Georgiou (2010) and Erskine

(2010) established that considering chocolate or smoking (respectively) did no longer lead to

more subsequent intake, while suppression did.

This suggests that contrary to instinct, considering an act won't be as dangerous as we

experience. Secondly, the fact that suppression seems to engage with one‘s pre-present

motivational tendencies appears to imply that one ought to turn out to be greater privy to their

threat areas. For instance, the studies from Klein (2007) and Johnston, Hudson and ward (1997)

advise that simplest people who are motivationally predisposed to a specific behaviour will

display hyper accessibility following suppression. Consequently, it is crucial that those findings
 36

are investigated similarly as they pick out which individuals (and under what situations) are more

susceptible to behavioral effects following idea suppression.

Once one turns into aware of one‘s threat areas it is vital to again are searching for to

keep away from the usage of suppression. Importantly, research is starting to examine ability

methods to enable people to lessen their reliance on idea suppression as a coping method.

Maximum promising among those strategies is mindfulness meditation that makes a specialty of

accepting in place of warding off certain thoughts. Studies have already validated that using

mindfulness meditation leads to reductions within the use of idea suppression and better manage

over sure behaviors (Bowen, 2007). In summary, research is converging at the view that thought

suppression can lead you to adopt movements that you have been intentionally looking for to

avoid. Worse nevertheless, it can make you sense as although the act took place without ‗you‘

intending. We agree with that this essential research area needs in addition emphasis because of

its high capacity to explain the numerous events of everyday existence wherein we seem to act

against our personal high-quality pastimes.

1.4 Rationale of Study

This research examines coping styles, thought suppression and unmitigated communion

among university students. The purpose of present research is to examine self reported coping

strategies, thought suppression and unmitigated communion on university students. Many

researchers have been conducted on these variables but this research will help to understand

students avoidance and emotional coping ability during thought suppression and also help to

understand which unmitigated communion personality developed that base on higher emotional

and avoidance coping, as well as higher thought suppression. Not so much researches are seen
 37

yet on the present research. Research has identified several variables that can influence the

effects of thought suppression, including the coping strategies and unmitigated communion. In

this study also examine the relationship of in these variables and how it‘s affected on gender

differences.

1.5 Research Gap

Previously these variables not used in single research or not work done on this combination

of variables. In previous studies of related variables was focused on different aspects and

interacts. Not much work done in Pakistan on this combination of variables. The other research

gap is sampling technique and total number of sample. In this research convenient sampling used

and only those students are selected which are easily accessible. In previous researches was

minimal work on student sample with this combination of variables.

1.6 Research Questions

1. Is there any relation between coping strategies and unmitigated communion?

2. Is there any relationship between coping strategies and thought suppression?

3. Is there any relationship between thought suppression and unmitigated communion?

4. What is difference of unmitigated communion on gender?

5. What is difference of coping strategies on gender?

6. What is difference of thought suppression on gender?

7. Is there a mediating role of coping strategies in relationship between with unmitigated

communion and thought suppression?

 38

1.7 Objectives of Study

1. To explore the relationship between Coping Strategies and Unmitigated Communion.

2. To explore the relationship between Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression.

3. To explore the relationship between Thought Suppression and Unmitigated Communion.

4. To find gender differences on Unmitigated Communion.

5. To find gender differences on Coping Strategies.

6. To find gender differences on Thought Suppression.

7. To investigate mediating role of coping strategies in relationship between unmitigated

communion and thought suppression.

1.8 Hypotheses

1. There would be significant relationship between Thought Suppression and Coping

Strategies.

2. There would be significant relationship between Thought Suppression and Unmitigated

Communion.

3. There would be significant relationship between Coping Strategies and Unmitigated

Communion.

4. Unmitigated Communion would vary on gender.

5. Coping Strategies would vary on gender.

6. Thought Suppression would vary on gender.

7. Coping Strategies would mediator relationship between Unmitigated Communion and

Thought Suppression.
 39

Chapter II

Literature Review

2.1 Thought Suppression and Coping Strategies

Individuals wide-ranging take action to unpleasant thoughts and emotions by attempting

to manage or modify them (Horowitz, 1976), mostly those related to traumatic events (e.g., Amir

et al., 1997). Individual differences in the use of several types of modulation strategies have been

observe individually in traumatized populations: thought control, emotion regulation, and

coping.

Thought suppression is thought control techniques that try to keep unwanted thoughts.

It‘s occur lots of times students face stressful events those made them suppress and actively tries

to keep away from certain thought, they create ways to cope by this suppression. Coping

strategies can be generally categorized at the same time as emotional and avoidance strategy and

further categories assist to solve this thought suppression. Coping studies basically suggest that

avoidant coping is maladaptive and be associated with thought suppression similar to PTSD

symptom severity (e.g., Bryant & Harvey, 1995; Burgess & Holmstrom, 1978).

On the other hand, move toward coping has been associated with less psychological

distress in college samples (e.g., Valentiner, Holahan, & Moos, 1994) and trauma samples (e.g.,

Frazier & Burnett, 1994). Previous coping results have in general been specific to single type of

harmful event or trauma, like as bereavement or motor vehicle accidents. The current study adds

to the literature through examining whether previously established relationships between coping
 40

and thought suppression resembling OCD and PTSD symptom stage are replicated in a mixed

trauma category sample and extends the literature as a result of elucidating the relationships

between coping and modulation methods.

Further to empirical support for the ironic, intrusive, go back of undesirable thoughts,

there additionally exists evidence indicating difficulty disengaging from those thoughts. As an

instance, Wegner and Erber (1992) discovered that humans suppressing a concept below

cognitive load showed interference with the mission of coloration-naming in a changed Stroop

(1935) paradigm. Remarkably, this interference was even extra than the interference located

when humans had been concentrating at the concept beneath load. These results suggest that

humans couldn't disengage attention to get away from the undesirable thought, and this difficulty

have become more pronounced with the imposition of cognitive load. This hyper accessibility of

suppressed thoughts has additionally been determined time and again with medical and non-

scientific samples (Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997; Klein, 2007;

Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997; Web page, Locke, & Trio, 2005).

Coping refers to continuous cognitive and behavioral method addressing in addition inner

and external needs perceived as worrying and/or exceeding a man or woman‘s coping resources

(Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Coping strategies are thought to mediate the connection between

stress and adjustment, with a few strategies aiding the individual to triumph over a stressor,

ensuing in progressed adjustment and consequences (Cooper, Katona, Orrell, & Livingston,

2008; Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Papastavrou., 2011).

 41

In line with this approach, emotion-focused coping styles should no longer be categorized

as inherently maladaptive. It's miles cautioned that engagement strategies, including active and

engaged strategies, also encompass emotional coping techniques, such as energetic processing

and expression of emotion (e.g., high quality reframing, attractiveness, looking for support,

problem-solving, and expressing emotions), may also serve an adaptive value under sure strain

instances. On these manners man or woman attempts to suppress the mind with coping

techniques.

Students face traumatic situations fall into damage-and-loss situations, danger conditions

or undertaking situations. Instances of harm-and-loss conditions are the demise of a loved one,

loss of personal assets, bodily assault and damage, and extreme loss of self-esteem. Risk

conditions can be actual or perceived and may range from being caught in site visitors to being

not able to understand an occasion. Threatening activities reside at the capacity of the character

to cope with everyday activities. Risk stressors bring about anger, hostility, frustration or despair.

Project situations promote both boom and pain, and those stressors mostly contain main life

modifications which encompass taking a brand new process, attending a new college, graduating

from college, leaving home and getting married. Project conditions are commonly seen as being

precise but involve strain, because they disrupt homeostasis and require sizeable mental and

bodily adjustment. All these sort of Situations College students may suppress and coping

approach suggest a set of cognitive and behavioral tries of a man or woman which are utilized in

a harassed situation and bring about lower in its trouble.

 42

2.2 Thought Suppression and Unmitigated Communion

This examine accumulate a connection between concept suppression and unmitigated

communion. Unmitigated communion directly influences idea suppression equal as suppression

became a cause of unmitigated communion. They both directly affected every other, sometime

better stage of idea suppression trade man or woman character into over involvement, self-forget

about and externalized self-evolution maybe it changed into occur with traumatic event.

Unmitigated communion has additionally been located to play a prime position in social

interaction processes and relationship conflict. Most of the people of unmitigated communion

studies have focused on how the supply of aid influences the high-unmitigated communion

character; especially in terms of how becoming overloaded with assembly others‘ needs is

associated with terrible fitness results. Unmitigated communion is definitely associated with help

provision (Helgeson, 1994), even as on the equal time continuously unrelated or negatively

associated with reports of help receipt. it for that reason seems that high-unmitigated communion

human beings are worried in a single-sided relationships in which they offer aid to others, but do

now not appear to get hold of something in go back. high-unmitigated communion humans are

also perceived as intrusive, self-neglecting, exploitable, no longer expressive of their very own

needs as a way to keep away from interpersonal conflict (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998), and tolerating

of insults and verbal abuse (Buss, 1990).

 43

All of the previous paintings examining how Unmitigated Communion humans behave in

relationships have trusted people‘ retrospective reports of their common conduct. As is

traditional in maximum correlation research, members are requested to describe how they

generally behave or how they have behaved over the past several weeks. There are boundaries to

the accuracy of these retrospective reviews. In the contemporary take a look at, we want to look

at greater proximal reviews of courting conduct for folks that have been high in Unmitigated

Communion. To this quit, we performed nighttime interviews with members for 7 consecutive

days and asked approximately their day by day social interactions. Our essential goal was to

determine whether certain aspects of day by day social interactions could be connected more

strongly to negative temper and bodily symptoms for Unmitigated Communion individuals than

for non- Unmitigated Communion individuals.

We center of attention on the character of interpersonal conflict within social interactions.

We select conflict because negative social interactions contain a strong impact lying on people.

In all-purpose, broad dealings of negative social interactions to contain conflict and further types

of negative interactions include coupled with greater psychological distress and increases in

distress in the fullness of time (Lakey, Tardiff, & Drew, 1994; Pagel, Erdly, & Becker, 1987;

Rook, 2001). Conflict deliberate as a distinct construct also include connected with greater

distress (Lepore, 1992; Schuster, Kessler, & Aseltine, 1990). In addition, interpersonal conflicts

are more distressing than further types of stressors, as well as stress at work, overloads at home,

economic problems, and transportation problems (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Schilling,

1989). In the laboratory, interpersonal stressors are more effective than further category of

stressors at increasing cardiovascular reactivity (Linden, Rutledge, & Con, 1998).

 44

A human being which belong toward any face of Unmitigated Communion had sometime

Overinvolvement suppress, sometime contain in self-neglect suppress and sometime it had

externalized self-evolution. All these variety of Unmitigated Communion peoples struggle to

stop or stay away from this suppression. Thought suppression and Unmitigated Communion

both link with each other in different situation with different level.

Unmitigated communion (UC) is personality qualities that are defined since a focus on

others to keeping out of the self (Helgeson, 1994; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998). Unmitigated

Communion is characterized through two primary components. First, the Unmitigated

Communion individual demonstrates an extreme focus on others and relationships. Second, the

Unmitigated Communion individual ignores the self and contains difficulty asserting his or her

requirements, perhaps as a result of Overinvolvement in relationships. Individual force himself to

control self neglecting and Overinvolvement, they try to suppress this kind of communion but

more they try to stay away from than more they involve in it.

Unmitigated communion people may also emerge as overinvolved in their relationships

because they derive their vanity from others‘ critiques of them. Unmitigated communion has

been related to an externalized self-belief (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998), which means that that they

base their views of themselves on how they're perceived with the aid of others. That is especially

difficult because they accept as true with that others view them negatively. An externalized self-

notion and a terrible perceived regard via others are connected to the low vanity of unmitigated

communion people (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998). Presenting help to others may be a try and beautify

their worth within the eyes of others (Helgeson & fritz, 1998).
 45

2.3 Coping Strategies and Unmitigated Communion

Moreover, this observes shows that students can be more sensitive to the effects of any

strain or burden, at the least whilst controlling for unmitigated communion. Coping techniques is

manner to therapy the unmitigated communion specifically at college students. Most of students

with over involvement unmitigated communion they without delay or circuitously intrude in

different troubles and stuck with them very badly. in other facet, they start self neglecting or

externalize self evolution with excessive self esteem, then maybe they became aggressive,

abusive, suicidal, remote e.g. in this case coping approach is most effective thing that man or

woman use to manage the internal and external demands of conditions which are appraised as

traumatic. A high-unmitigated communion character might also have very extraordinary coping

style than a low-unmitigated communion character.

Commonly, students in any respect tiers experience some styles of pressure relying on

their instructional workload and surroundings. College students frequently complain about heavy

academic paintings load, in particular once they have to integrate educational and extra-

curricular activities. Aside from this, students, specifically those who are away from home for

the first time, revel in a whole lot of pressure in their attempt to conform to college lifestyles.

Commonly, students show pressure prompted behaviors in the center of the semester while

instructional paintings coupled with different needs cause them to break down bodily and

emotionally. The sort of scenario requires a research to perceive the coping strategies that

students undertake to control annoying situations inside the instructional environment.

 46

Majority of these occasions expand a character trait trade in students. Unmitigated

communion is a persona orientation this is described as a focus on others to the exclusion of the

self, putting others‘ needs before one‘s personal (Helgeson & Fritz, 1999). Its miles associated

with decrease self-esteem, over involvement with others and self-forget. individuals who rating

higher on measures of unmitigated communion base perceptions of themselves on others‘ view

of them, which leads them to fear bad evaluation by way of others. They're overly nurturing,

intrusive and self-sacrificing and they may offer support to others to beautify self confidence

(Helgeson, 1998). Character with higher levels of unmitigated communion have trouble

maintaining them and can even revel in pain receiving assist or undertaking self-disclosure (Fritz

& Helgeson, 1998). Not rather, scores on measures of this gender-associated trait are higher in

girls than in men and are related to greater sensitivity to interpersonal stressors (Nagurney, 2007;

Reynolds, 2006) in addition to tension and depressive symptoms in network samples (Fritz &

Helgeson, 1998).

Emotional Approach Coping (EAC), a approach involving interactions with others, is

well documented as a a success coping strategy extra efficiently utilized by girls than guys

(Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, & Danoff-Burg, 2000a). emotional Approach coping (EAC) is an

method-oriented emotion-centered coping method that consists of emotion processing, or

actively acknowledging and exploring feelings to come to an understanding, and emotion

expression, or communicating one‘s emotional enjoy to others (Austenfeld & Stanton, 2004).

Coping through these procedures allows habituation to and labeling of emotions, cognitive

reappraisal of stressors, rationalization and pursuit of dreams and bolstered social relationships

(Annette l. Stanton & Low, 2012). The two tiers of emotional approach coping (EAC) are
 47

concept to be most effective whilst utilized in collection, and whilst utilized in reaction to

interpersonal, uncontrollable stressors in a socially receptive environment (Stanton, 2000a;

Stanton, 2000b). Although research could not be determined that take a look at this specially in

the context of disorder-related interpersonal pressure, good sized research has documented

emotional approach coping (EAC) effectiveness among women university college students.

Particularly, emotional technique coping (EAC) has been related to decrease affective ache and

depression symptoms in university students dealing with pressure and academic burden.
 48

Chapter III

Method

3.1 Study I

Translation of White Bear Suppression Inventory, COPE Inventory and Unmitigated

Communion Scale

A standardized translation procedure was followed (Waters et al., 2006). The translation

steps are explained as follows:

3.1.1 Step 1: Forward translation.

The scales were given to 3 bilingual Clinical Psychologists with expertise in research

and test development. They were asked to translate the scales keeping in mind the contextual

meaning and precision of the statements and the category of the respondents for which the scale

was being translated.

3.1.2 Step 2: Reconciliation of items.

The Urdu translations were reconciled by a subsequent discussion about meaning and

expression of items, between the team of researchers. The selected reconciled forward translation

consisted of the best fitted translations of the items on the basis of conceptual equivalence,

comprehensibility and clarity of speech.

 49

3.1.3 Step 3: Backward translation.

To assess the conceptual equivalence of the reconciled forward translation and the

English Scales, backward translation of the items was carried. This was again conducted by two

bilingual English experts with at least qualification of M.Phil in English.

3.1.4 Step 4: Review of the forward and backward Translation.

In order to provide a final forward translation, a review was designed to assess the entire

forward-backward process. Final forward translation document was obtained by reviewing the

translation item-by-item. This was done by comparing the back-translated items to English

source items on the basis of conceptual equivalence, clarity as well as colloquial language.

3.1.5 Step 5: Pre-test (cognitive interviews).

To show whether all items can be understood and are acceptable, the translated scale was

administered on 20 university students of MS Clinical Psychology. The participants were asked

about what the scale was assessing, to repeat statements in their own words, their understanding

of the items and to explain how they chose their responses. The participant‘s responses were

compared to respondent‘s actual responses to the instrument for consistency. The alternative

words or expressions were asked from the respondents, which better confirmed to their usual

language. These suggestions were incorporated in finalizing the translation of the scale.

3.1.6 Step 6: Validation study.

The final forward translation was validated by administering the original Scales forward

translation with a gap of one week, respectively. Then, item by item and item total correlation

was carried out. The items which had correlation 0.5 or higher were finalized and the items with
 50

correlation below 0.5 were revised by the researchers. Most of the items had highly significant

results. The validation process was again carried with revised items until they had significant

item by item correlation. Finally, an empirical translation of White Bear Suppression Inventory,

COPE Inventory and Unmitigated Communion scale into Urdu was obtained.
 51

3.2 Study II

3.2.1 Operational Definition

 Thought Suppression

Thought suppression commonly refers to the act of deliberately trying to rid the mind of

unwanted thoughts (Wegner, 1989).

 Coping Strategies

Coping is defined as thoughts and behaviors that people use to manage the internal and

external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

According to Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub, (1989), is a distinction between two main

styles of coping namely, problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-

focused coping seeks to solve problems or change the source of stress. On the other hand,

emotion-focused coping aims to reduce or manage the emotional distress associated with the

situation.

 Unmitigated Communion

Unmitigated communion (UC) is a personality trait that is defined as a focus on others to

the exclusion of the self (Helgeson, 1994; Helgeson & Fritz, 1998).

3.2.2 Research Design

The present study was conducted through survey research design.

 52

3.2.3 Participants

The sample of the study was consisted of 300 students. 150 of them were boys and 150

girls were selected on the basis of convenient sampling was use to collect the data in this study.

It is a non-probability sampling technique where subjects are selected because of their

convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher from universities in Multan. Participants

were selected from the following departments; B.A/ B.sc, Bs engineering, BBA/MBA, B.S and

MPhil. Age range of the sample was taken to be 18 and above.

3.2.4 Instruments

3.2.4.1 White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI)

The WBSI is a 15-item questionnaire that is designed to measure thought suppression

(Wegner & Zanakos, 1994). The scoring of the WBSI is based on a 5 point scale from Strongly

disagree (1) to Strongly agree (5). The total score is obtained by summing up the responses that

are provided by respondents. The total score can range from 15 to 75. Higher scores on the

WBSI indicate greater tendencies to suppress thoughts. The WBSI has very good internal

consistency, with alphas ranging from .87 to .89. The WBSI has also been found to have good

stability with a 1 week test-retest correlation of .92, and a 3 week to 3 month test-retest

correlation of .69. The two factors included a WBSI Suppression subfactor (item 1, 10 and 13)

and a WBSI Intrusions subfactor (item 2,3,4,5,6,7,9, and 11).

3.2.4.2 COPE Inventory

The COPE inventory is comprised of 15 four-item scales that assess a variety of coping

strategies (Caver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989). Using the dispositional response format,
 53

participants indicated how frequently they used each coping strategy on a four-point scale

anchored by ‗‗usually do not do this at all‘‘ and ‗‗usually do this a lot‘‘.such as Positive

reinterpretation and growth (1, 29, 38, and 59), Mental disengagement (2, 16, 31, 43), Focus on

and venting of emotions (3, 17, 28, 46), Use of instrumental social support (4, 14, 30, 45), Active

coping (5, 25, 47, 58), Denial (6, 27, 40, 57), Religious coping (7, 18, 48, 60), Humor (8, 20, 36,

50), Behavioral disengagement (9, 24, 37, 51), Restraint (10, 22, 41, 49), Use of emotional

social support (11, 23, 34, 52), Substance use (12, 26, 35, 53), Acceptance (13, 21, 44, 54),

Suppression of competing activities (15, 33, 42, 55), Planning (19, 32, 39, 56).

3.2.4.3 Unmitigated Communion

This is a 9 items self report measure of Unmitigated Communion (Fritz & Helgeson,

1998). To determine your score, reverse score item number 2. Then add all nine answer values

together. The higher your score, the more you tend to subjugate your own needs to needs of other

people.

3.2.5 Procedure

First of all the scales were translated into Urdu language through backward forward

method (Waters et al., 2006). And then permission to collect data was granted from the

University Authority, through official permission letter. Students were given the brief

introduction of the purpose of the study and their consent to participant‘s research was taken.

They were also guided regarding ethical consideration such as confidentiality and right to

withdraw. The booklet including consent form with demographic variables combined with scales

was given to students. They were asked to fill out the forms according to their perspective and

any queries during data collection were answered. After completion of administration, they were
 54

thanked individually for their cooperation and participants were also discussed about sharing

research findings with them.

 55

Chapter IV
Results

The main purpose of study was to speculate the relationship between Coping Strategies,

Thought Suppression and Unmitigated Communion. Initially descriptive analysis of

demographic variables was carried out along with reliability estimates of measure on current

sample. Correlation coefficient and regression analysis was run to test study main hypothesis.

Table 4.1

Item Analysis of the total Items for Unmitigated Communion Scale (UCS) N=20, Items=09)

Item No R Α

1 .61 .75

2 .71 .79

3 .54 .75

4 .62 .79

5 .59 .77

6 .63 .78

7 .53 .76

8 .55 .76

9 .50 .77
 56

Table 4.2

Item Analysis of the total Items for Coping Strategies Scale (CSS) (N=20, Items=60)

Item No R Α

1 .61 .83

2 .60 .84

3 .60 .83

4 .69 .83

5 .62 .83

6 .68 .83

7 .66 .83

8 .63 .83

9 .62 .83

10 .68 .83

11 .69 .85

12 .64 .83

13 .67 .83

14 .63 .83

15 .62 .83

16 .68 .84

17 .66 .83

18 .60 .83
 57

19 .66 .83

20 .65 .83

21 .69 .83

22 .60 .83

23 .66 .83

24 .67 .83

25 .61 .83

26 .62 .83

27 .65 .84

28 .68 .84

29 .62 .83

30 .60 .84

31 .66 .83

32 .66 .83

33 -.61 .85

34 .60 .84

35 .62 .84

36 .61 .83

37 .69 .83

38 .62 .83

39 .69 .83
 58

40 .62 .83

41 .68 .83

42 .63 .83

43 .63 .83

44 .67 .83

45 .66 .83

46 .60 .84

47 .64 .83

48 .65 .83

49 .64 .83

50 .61 .83

51 .69 .83

52 .61 .84

53 .65 .83

54 .65 .83

55 .65 .83

56 .66 .83

57 .65 .84

58 .63 .84

59 .65 .84

60 .69 .84
 59

Table 4.3

Item Analysis of the total Items for Thought Suppression Scale (TS) (N=20, Items=15)

Item No R Α

1 .74 .88

2 .78 .87

3 .79 .87

4 .71 .86

5 .71 .86

6 .72 .87

7 .74 .87

8 .77 .88

9 .79 .87

10 .77 .87

11 .72 .86

12 .70 .87

13 .72 .86

14 .77 .87

15 .77 .87
 60

Table 4.4

Test of Normality of UCS, CSS and TS on total sample (N=300)

Scale N Skewness Standard Values Kurtosis Standard Values P

error error

UCS 300 -.61 .14 -4.35 -.16 .28 -0.57 .000

TS 300 -.51 .14 -3.64 -.02 .28 -0.07 .000

CSS

AC 300 -.92 .14 -6.57 .78 .28 2.78 .000

P 300 -1.01 .14 -7.21 .69 .28 2.46 .000

SCA 300 5.37 .14 38.35 64.37 .28 229.89 .000

RC 300 -.88 .14 -6.28 .39 .28 1.39 .000

SSSIR 300 -.58 .14 -4.14 -.16 .28 -0.57 .000

SSSER 300 .18 .14 1.28 -.70 .28 -2.5 .000

PRG 300 -1.05 .14 -7.5 1.38 .28 4.92 .000

A 300 -.45 .14 3.21 -.37 .28 -1.32 .000

D 300 .19 .14 1.35 -.66 .28 -2.35 .000

MD 300 -.04 .14 -0.28 -.78 .28 -2.78 .000

 61

H 300 -.04 .14 -0.28 -.77 .28 -2.75 .000

RC 300 7.50 .14 53.57 105.84 .28 378 .000

FVE 300 .002 .14 0.01 -.66 .28 -2.35 .000

BD 300 2.45 .14 17.5 16.83 .28 60.10 .000

SU 300 1.96 .14 14 2.25 .28 8.03 .000

Note: UCS=Unmitigated Communion Scale, TSS=Thought Suppression CSS=Coping Strategies

Scale, AC= Active Coping, P= Planning, SCA= Suppression for competing activities, RC=

Restraint Coping, SSSIR= Seeking Social Support for instrumental reason, SSSER= Seeking

social Support for Emotional Reason, PRG= Positive reinterpretation and Growth, A=

Acceptance, D= Denial, MD= Mental Disengagement, H=Humor, RC= Religious Coping, FVE:

Focus on and Venting of Emotions, BD= Behavioral Disengagement, SU: Substance Use.
 62

Table 4.5

Descriptive analysis of demographic variables of sample (N = 300)

Variables F ( %) M (SD)

Age 20.74 (2.63)

Gender

Male 150 (50)

Female 150 (50)

Class

Bs 229 (76.3)

Msc/Ma 43 (14.3)

Mphill/Ms 28 (9.3)

Departments

Pure Science 189 (63)

Social Science 82 (27.3)

Arts & Humanities 29 (9.7)

 63

Table 4.6

Reliability analysis of UCS, CSS and TS on total sample (N=300)

Scale No of Items Alpha Coefficient Split Half

K α

UCS 09 .80 .70 .71

CSS 60 .84 .82 .78

TS 15 .88 .77 .83

Note.UCS=Unmitigated Communion Scale, CSS=Coping Strategies Scale, TSS=Thought

Suppression, k = number of items, α = Cronbach alpha

In Table 4.6 reliability analysis result shows that estimated Cronbach alpha level of all the

scales is high for total sample.

 64

Table 4.7

Correlation between, Thought Suppression, Coping Strategies and Unmitigated Communion

(N=300)

Variables 1 2 3

1. Thought --- --- ---

Suppression

2. Coping
Strategies
AC .130* --- .260**

P .253** --- .332**

SCA .173** --- .198**

RC .150** --- .311**

SSSIR .211** --- .164**

SSSER .093 --- .130*

PRG .136* --- .365**

A .245** --- .212**

D .276** --- .197**

MD .386** --- .220**

H .222** --- .056

RC .152** --- .147**

FVE .203** --- .218**

BD .108 --- -.005

SU .057 --- -.029

3.Unmittigated --- --- ---

Communion
M 53.23 --- 31.83

SD 11.42 --- 6.23

 65

Note: AC= Active Coping, P= Planning, SCA= Suppression for competing activities, RC=
Restraint Coping, SSSIR= Seeking Social Support for instrumental reason, SSSER= Seeking
social Support for Emotional Reason, PRG= Positive reinterpretation and Growth, A=
Acceptance, D= Denial, MD= Mental Disengagement, H=Humor, RC= Religious Coping, FVE:
Focus on and Venting of Emotions, BD= Behavioral Disengagement, SU: Substance Use.
**p<.01

Table 4.7 presents correlation for all variables. Significant positive relationships (p < 0.05) were

found between Unmitigated Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression.

Table 4.8

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Active Coping (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 9.39 .67 8.07 10.71

UCS .09 .26 .02 .05 .14

F 21.63

R2 .07

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Active

Coping. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development

scores of Active Coping. The model was significant (F= 21.63, p< .001). Total R2explains the

70% variation in the development scores.

 66

Table 4.9

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Planning (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 8.81 .70 7.43 10.18

UCS .13 .33 .20 .09 .17

F 36.83

R2 .11

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Planning.

Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development scores of

Planning. The model was significant (F= 36.83, p< .001). Total R2explains the 11% variation in

the development scores.

 67

Table 4.10

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Suppression of Competing

Activities (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 7.22 1.12 5.01 9.43

UCS .12 .19 .04 .05 .19

F 12.11

R2 .04

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Suppression

of Competing Activities. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict

the development scores of Suppression of Competing Activities. The model was significant (F=

12.11, p< .001). Total R2explains the 40% variation in the development scores.
 68

Table 4.11

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Restraint Coping (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 8.14 .76 6.64 9.65

UCS .13 .31 .02 .09 .18

F 31.95

R2 .01

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Restraint

Coping. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development

scores of Restraint Coping. The model was significant (F = 31.95, p< .001). Total R2explains the

.10% variation in the development scores.

 69

Table 4.12

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Seeking Social Support for
Instrumental Reasons (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 9.25 .87 7.53 10.97

UCS 0.77 .16 .03 .02 .13

F 8.24

R2 .03

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Seeking

Social Support for Instrumental Reasons. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion

significantly predict the development scores of Seeking Social Support for Instrumental Reasons.

The model was significant (F = 8.24, p< .001). Total R2explains the 30% variation in the

development scores.
 70

Table 4.13

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Seeking Social Support for
Emotional Reasons (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 7.35 .91 5.47 9.22

UCS .07 .13 .03 .01 .12

F 5.13

R2 .02

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Seeking

Social Support for Emotional Reasons. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion

significantly predict the development scores of Seeking Social Support for Emotional Reasons.

The model was significant (F = 5.13, p< .001). Total R2explains the 20% variation in the

development scores.
 71

Table 4.14

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Positive Reinterpretation

and growth (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 8.87 6.40 7.61 10.13

UCS 1.33 .37 .02 .09 .17

F 45.73

R2 .13

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Positive

Reinterpretation and growth. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly

predict the development scores of Positive Reinterpretation and growth. The model was

significant (F = 45.73, p< .001). Total R2explains the 13% variation in the development scores.
 72

Table 4.15

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Acceptance (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 8.79 .83 7.15 10.43

UCS .01 .21 .03 .05 .15

F 13.97

R2 .05

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Acceptance.

Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development scores of

Acceptance. The model was significant (F= 13.97, p< .001). Total R2explains the 50% variation

in the development scores.

 73

Table 4.16

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Denial (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 6.20 .95 4.32 8.08

UCS .10 .20 .03 .04 .16

F 12.08

R2 .04

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Denial.

Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development scores of

Denial. The model was significant (F = 12.08, p< .001). Total R2explains the 40% variation in

the development scores.

 74

Table 4.17

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Mental Disengagement

(N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 7.11 .86 5.37 8.85

UCS .11 .220 .03 .05 .16

F 15.18

R2 .05

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Mental

Disengagement. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the

development scores of Mental Disengagement. The model was significant (F= 15.18, p< .001).

Total R2explains the 50% variation in the development scores.

 75

Table 4.18

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Humor (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 9.64 .91 7.86 11.42

UCS .03 .06 .03 .03 .08

F .94

R2 .003

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Humor.

Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development scores of

Humor. The model was significant (F= .94, p< .001). Total R2explains the 30% variation in the

development scores.
 76

Table 4.19

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Focus on And Venting of
Emotions (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 6.98 .88 5.26 8.71

UCS .10 .220 .03 0.51 .16

F 16.90

R2 .05

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Focus on

And Venting of Emotions. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict

the development scores of Focus on And Venting of Emotions. The model was significant (F=

16.90, p< .001). Total R2explains the 50% variation in the development scores.
 77

Table 4.20

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Religious Coping (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 11.91 .89 101.16 13.67

UCS .07 .15 .03 .02 .13

F 6.60

R2 .02

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Religious

Coping. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development

scores of Religious Coping. The model was significant (F = 6.60, p< .001). Total R2explains the

20% variation in the development scores.

 78

Table 4.21

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Behavioral

Disengagement (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 8.22 1.20 6.01 10.42

UCS -.04 -.005 .04 -.07 .07

F .09

R2 .00

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Behaviour

Disengagement. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the

development scores of Behaviour Disengagement. The model was significant (F= .09, p< .001).

Total R2explains the 00% variation in the development scores.

 79

Table 4.22

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Substance Use (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 6.31 1.51 4.05 8.58

UCS -.02 -.03 .04 -.09 .05

F .25

R2 .00

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Substance

Use. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the development

scores of Substance Use. The model was significant (F = .25, p< .001). Total R2explains the 00%

variation in the development scores.

 80

Table 4.23

Simple regression analysis for Unmitigated Communion in predicting Thought Suppression

(N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B Β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 34.56 3.26 28.14 40.98

UCS .58 .32 .10 .39 .79

F 34.00

R2 .10

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .01.*p < .05, **p < .001.

Simple linear regression was carried out to find the significant predictors of Thought

Suppression. Results indicated that Unmitigated Communion significantly predict the

development scores of Thought suppression. The model was significant (F = 34.00, p< .001).

Total R2explains the 10% variation in the development scores.

 81

Table 4.24

Multiple Regression analysis for Coping Strategies in identifying predictor of thought

suppression (N=300)

Coefficients 95 % CI

Variable B β SEB LL UL

Intercept (a) 13.45 5.58 2.46 24.45

Positive Interpretations and .01 .00 .31 -.60 .63

growth

Mental Disengagements 1.05 .27** .26 .53 1.58

Use of instrumental social .17 .04 .25 -.32 .66

support

Focus on venting of emotions .36 .09 .25 -.13 .85

Active coping -.09 -.01 .32 -.72 .54

Denial .52 .14* .20 .12 .93

Religious coping .32 .08 .21 -.09 .74

Behavioral disengagement -.10 -.03 .18 -.46 .26

Restraint -.02 -.00 .25 -.53 .48

Substance Use -.06 -.02 .18 -.42 .29

Use of emotional social support -.09 .02 .24 -.56 .38

Acceptance .46 .11* .22 .02 .90

Humor .13 .03 .24 -.34 .60

Suppression of coping activities .20 .06 .17 -.13 .54

Planning .55 .12 .33 -.93 1.20

F 6.58**

R2 .25
 82

Note. β = standardize coefficient of regression. SEB = standard error of beta. LL = lower limit.

UL = upper limit. R = .50. **p < .001, *p < .05

Linear multiple regressions were carried out to find the significant predictors of thought

suppression with respect to multiple factors. Results indicated that mental disengagement, Denial

and acceptance significantly predict the development scores of thought suppression, and

moreover none of other factor predicting relationship found among all other predictors. The

model was significant (F = 6.58, p< .001). Total R2explains the 25% variation in the

development scores, whereas denial (β = .14, p< .05) have small size regression coefficient and

acceptance (β = .11, p< .05) similarly observed small size regression coefficient. The positive

sign in both standardize beta coefficients means that development scores would increase with

respect to predictors.
 83

Table 4.25

Hierarchical Multiple Regression to find Moderating Effect of Coping Strategies (N=300)

Unstandardized Standardized
Coefficients Coefficients

Model Predictor B SE Β P R2 R2 F P

Change

1 UCS .59 .10 .32 .000 .10 .10 6.59 .000

Note: UCS= Unmitigated Communion. **p<.01*p< .05

 84

Unstandardized Standardized
Coefficients Coefficients

Model Predictor B SE Β P R2 R2 F P

Change

2. AC -.146 .321 -.029 .650 .28 .18 6.82 .000

P .508 .326 .109 .121

SCA .158 .158 .052 .361

RC -.112 .258 -.026 .665

SSSIR .431 .250 .111 .086

SSSER -.105 .238 -.029 .657

PRG -.186 .320 -.037 .562

A .418 .222 .103 .061

D .466 .204 .132 .023

MD .933 .266 .246 .001

H .163 .239 .043 .495

RC .308 .210 .080 .144

FVE .093 .251 .024 .712

BD -.059 .184 -.019 .748

SU -.036 .182 -.012 .844

UCS .305 .109 .166 .005

Note: AC= Active Coping, P= Planning, SCA= Suppression for competing activities, RC=
Restraint Coping, SSSIR= Seeking Social Support for instrumental reason, SSSER= Seeking
social Support for Emotional Reason, PRG= Positive reinterpretation and Growth, A=
Acceptance, D= Denial, MD= Mental Disengagement, H=Humor, RC= Religious Coping, FVE:
Focus on and Venting of Emotions, BD= Behavioral Disengagement, SU: Substance Use and
UCS=Unmitigated Communion scale. **p<.01*p< .05
 85

R2 of model 1 having only Unmitigated Communion as predictors of Thought Suppression is

shows 10% of variance in Thought Suppression. R2 of model 2 shows that 28% of variance in

Thought Suppression by interacting effects of Unmitigated Communion and Coping Strategies.

R2 change of model 2 shows that if coping strategies are controlled or excluded, 10% of variance

in Thought Suppression is by Unmitigated Communion.

 86

Table 4.26

Independent sample t test for gender difference in Unmitigated Communion Scale (UCS)

(N=300)

Male Female 95 % CI

Variable M SD M SD t (298) P LL UL Cohen‘s d

UCS 32.8 6.06 30.84 6.25 2.80 .005 .59 3.39 0.32

Note.CI = confidence interval. LL = lower limit. UL = upper limit.*p< .05

Table 4.26 illustrates there is significant gender difference in level of Unmitigated

Communion between male and female students. The mean differences shows that male students

(M = 32.8, SD = 6.06) have significantly high (p< .05) level of Unmitigated Communion than

female students (M = 30.84, SD = 6.25). While, the Cohen‘s d value suggests medium effect size

of both groups on the scores.

 87

Table 4.27

Independent sample t test for gender difference in Coping Strategies (N=300)

Male Female 95 % CI

Variable M SD M SD t (298) P LL UL Cohen‘s d

AC 12.80 2.10 12.10 2.44 2.66 .08 .182 1.21 0.30

(298)

P 13.41 2.19 12.52 2.62 3.17 .02 .336 1.43 0.37

(298)

SCA 11.69 4.57 10.42 2.63 2.92 .35 .413 2.11 0.35
(298)

RC 12.76 2.57 11.99 2.71 2.53 .71 .172 1.37 0.29

(298)

SSSIR 11.92 2.80 11.48 3.05 1.29 .24 -.226 1.10 0.15
(298)

SSSER 10.06 3.20 8.86 3.05 3.32 .40 .448 1.91 0.38
(298)

PRG 13.26 2.13 12.95 2.40 1.19 .16 -.203 .83 0.13
(298)

A 11.52 2.58 12.16 3.02 -1.95 .03 -1.27 .005 -0.22

(298)

D 9.54 2.97 9.36 3.47 .500 .03 -.547 .920 0.05

(298)

MD 10.34 2.87 10.64 3.13 -.844 .14 -.977 .390 -0.1

(298)
 88

H 10.36 2.87 10.64 3.13 -.806 .13 -.963 .403 -0.09

(298)

RC 13.94 1.72 14.37 3.85 -1.23 .13 -1.10 .251 -0.15

(298)

FVE 10.49 2.93 10.12 3.02 1.08 .77 -.304 1.05 0.12
(298)

BD 8.66 4.27 7.58 2.96 2.54 .03 -.243 1.91 0.29

(298)

SU 6.50 4.38 4.99 2.98 3.49 .00 .661 2.36 0.41

(298)

Note: AC= Active Coping, P= Planning, SCA= Suppression for competing activities, RC=
Restraint Coping, SSSIR= Seeking Social Support for instrumental reason, SSSER= Seeking
social Support for Emotional Reason, PRG= Positive reinterpretation and Growth, A=
Acceptance, D= Denial, MD= Mental Disengagement, H=Humor, RC= Religious Coping, FVE:
Focus on and Venting of Emotions, BD= Behavioral Disengagement, SU: Substance Use.
**p<.01

Table 4.27 shows Planning, Suppression for Competing Activities, Seeking Social

Support for Emotional Reason, Acceptance, Denial, Behaviour Disengagement and substance

use significant different in males and females students. But other Coping Strategies had no

significant difference in male and female students.

 89

Table 4.28

Independent sample t test for gender difference in Thought Suppression (TS) (N=300)

Male Female 95 % CI

Variable M SD M SD t (298) P LL UL Cohen‘s d

TS 53.03 11.05 53.44 11.82 -.308 .76 -3.00 2.19 0.03

(289)

Note.CI = confidence interval. LL = lower limit. UL = upper limit.*p< .05

Table 4.28 illustrates there is no significant gender difference in level of Thought

Suppression between male and female students. The mean differences shows that male students

(M = 53.03, SD = 11.05) have significantly high (p< .05) level of Thought suppression than

female students (M = 53.44, SD = 11.82). While, the Cohen‘s d value suggests medium effect

size of both groups on the scores.

 90

Chapter V

Discussion
The aim of the present study was to investigate the interacting effects of thought

suppression, coping strategies and unmitigated communion among university students and also

investigate the relationship between these variables. The result shows Unmitigated Communion

level significantly high in males rather than females. We propose that generalized thought

suppression is a consequence of unmitigated communion individuals' low self-regard and

reliance on others for self-esteem. However, we also expect that Overinvolvement because

suppression and unmitigated communion were positively correlated. In other side self-neglect

lead to increased psychological distress. Overinvolvement with others, in particular, may create

situation-specific sources of distress, such as intrusive thoughts about others' problems, which

would then contribute to greater generalized distress. Finally, the neglect of the self, which may

stem from a negative self-view or from Overinvolvement with others, may have direct effects on

physical health.

If Unmitigated Communion level was high then automatically individual thought

suppression level increased. Unmitigated Communion has also been found to play a major role in

social interaction processes and relationship conflict. The majority of Unmitigated Communion

research has focused on how the provision of support affects the high-Unmitigated Communion

individual, specifically in terms of how becoming overloaded with meeting others‘ needs is

associated with negative health outcomes. Helgeson, (1994).

 91

Additionally, this study indicates that Students may be more sensitive to the effects of

any stress or burden and use to manage demands associated with any stressful situation

(Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S,1981), at least when scheming for Unmitigated Communion. Coping

Strategies is way to cure the Unmitigated Communion especially at university students. Most of

students with Overinvolvement, self neglecting or externalize self evolution with high self

esteem of Unmitigated Communion they directly or indirectly interfere in other problems and

stuck with them very badly. In this case Coping Strategy is only thing that helped students to

decreased Unmitigated Communion level and also manage the internal and external demands of

situations. These all things show the indirect relationship between Unmitigated communion and

coping strategies. (Fritz & Helgeson, 1998).

Thought suppression is a thought control technique that attempts to keep unwanted

thoughts. It‘s happen many times students face stressful events that made them suppress and

actively tries to avoid certain thought, they found ways to cope by this suppression. Coping

strategies can be mostly classified as emotional and avoidance strategy and many further

categories help to resolve this thought suppression. Like as when students are so depressed

because of overloaded burden of study then they follow ways of coping to get rid of this

suppression. All circumstances in life bring in concerning a response, but there have been

various methods by way of which students reacted or respond to these circumstances. To these

circumstances, coping force to try and manage or address pressure of it. That thing indicated

negative relationship between coping strategies and thought suppression because when coping

strategies increased then thought suppression decreased. These both variables are opposite from

each other. (Bryant & Harvey, 1995; Burgess & Holmstrom, 1978).
 92

In this study, Unmitigated Communion, Coping Strategies and Thought Suppression

would vary on gender. The result of study shows gender differences are differ in every situation

like as male and female use different ways of coping strategies. For example, male use Humor

and Substance (drugs, smoking e.g.) whereas females mostly use religious coping, seeking social

support for emotional reasons or instrumental reasons coping to overcome the stress. These

variables were also show gender difference level like as unmitigated communion more in male

rather than female, thought suppression more in female rather than male and coping strategies

excessive in females than male. In our study have some predictions like as thought suppression

predict if any individual have good coping strategies to compress the suppression then he had a

good survival power and also had chances to change the stuffed circumstances.

However, lf be short of coping style in any individual then have many chances of

occurring OCD and PTSD. Same as unmitigated communion predict lack of coping skills

became the reason of personality problems that create the issues in communication whereas good

problem focusing skills put aside from psychopathic issues. Conversely, approach coping has

been associated with less psychological distress in college samples (Valentiner, Holahan, &

Moos, 1994) and trauma samples (Frazier & Burnett, 1994). Thus, the findings of studies

provided evidence that the COPE inventory assesses self-sufficient and socially-supported styles

of coping that are relatively approach-oriented and positive, along with a generally negative,

avoidant-coping style; all of these coping styles involved combinations of problem- and emotion-

focused strategies, which it should be noted, did not consistently define separate factors. To

clarify whether problem- and emotion-focused strategies are meaningfully distinct, it would be
 93

interesting to separately assess each strategy‘s impact on stressors and on associated emotions,

which may be low or high unmitigated communion.

5.1 Conclusion

This study is important because it allows realizing and evaluating the range of coping

strategies ways for students to deal with stressful situations. The coping strategies mediate for

unmitigated communion and thought suppression. The effect of thought suppression on student‘s

well-being was far reaching, as nearly two thirds were not sleeping well, and half were stressed

by interpersonal conflicts. Half were reporting unmitigated communion found to be low self

esteem as a reason of externalized self evolution. Self-blame and self-criticism were often the

reactions to stressful situations that became the reason lack of a positive sense of self esteem

from unmitigated communion individual was associated with judging the self against others

opinion.

5.2 Implication

The coping strategies were assisting to students and with immediate consequences which can be

implemented directly. All coping strategies may be seen as giving up on the attempt to compress

thought suppression and unmitigated communion that generate troubles at university side which

interfering student‘s daily routine. Reducing attempts to continue with work may lead to feelings

of lowered self-esteem and be associated with aspects of helplessness.

5.3 Limitations
 94

There are a few following key limitations to bear in mind when interpreting the results of this

study.

 Firstly, there were relatively few participants in the current study.

 Secondly, the present study examined a relatively small number of outcomes over a very

short period of time.

 The investigation was cross-sectional, so no inferences can be made about causality. It is

possible that perceptions of intense student‘s suppression lead to the adoption of certain

coping strategies rather than the reverse.

 The participants involved in this research were university students who tended to be quite

healthy, both physically and psychologically.

5.4 Suggestion

 Future work should include larger samples, paying special attention to the balance of men

and women.

 In closing, despite these admitted weaknesses, the present research does provide a good

first attempt to examine the interactive effects of Unmitigated Communion, Coping

Strategies and Thought Suppression.

 Future work examining participants outside of this population, including those suffering

from chronic conditions such as OCD, PTSD or Social Phobias, will provide interesting

extensions of the present results.

 Future work should also seek to address the identified weaknesses and explore the

potential applications of this new knowledge.

 95

References

Abramowitz, J. S., Tolin, D. F., & Street, G. P. (2001). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression: A

meta-analysis of controlled studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 21, 683- 703.

Abramowitz, J.S., Tolin D.F. & Street, G.P. (2001). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Clinical

Psychology Review, 21, 683–703.

Algarabel S, Luciano JV & Martínez JL (2006). Inhibitory voluntary control of memory: Effect of

stimulus onset asynchrony on reaction time to suppressed memories. Psicologica, 27, 57-77.

Amanatullah, E. T., Morris, M. W., & Curhan, J. R. (2008). Negotiators who give too much:

Unmitigated communion, relational anxieties, and economic costs in distributive and integrative

bargaining. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 723–738.

Amirkhan, J.H. (1990).A factor analytically derived measure of coping. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 59, 1066–1074.

Anderson MC & Green C (2001). Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature, 410,

366-369.

Ansfield, M.E., Wegner, D.M. & Bowser, R. (1996). Ironic effects of sleep urgency. Behaviour

Research and Therapy, 34, 523–531.

 96

Anspaugh, D. J., Hamrick, M. H., & Rosato, F. D. (2003). Wellness: Concepts and applications (5th

ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Arndt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Simon, 1997; Klein, 2007; Newman, Duff, & Baumeister,

1997; Page, Locke, & Trio, 2005).

Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Simon, L. (1997). Suppression, accessibility of

death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: Exploring the psychodynamics of terror

management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 5-18.

Aspinwall, L.G. & Taylor, S.E. (1997).A stitch in time: Self-regulation and proactive coping.

Psychological Bulletin, 121, 417–436.

Aube´, J. (2008). Balancing concern for other with concern for self: Links between unmitigated

communion, communion, and psychological well-being. Journal of Personality, 76, 101–133.

Austenfeld, J. L., & Stanton, A. L. (2004). Coping Through Emotional Approach: A New Look at

Emotion, Coping, and Health-Related Outcomes. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1335–1364.

Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Chicago: Rand Mcnally.

Barrett, L. F., Tugade, M. M., & Engle, R. W. (2004). Individual differences in working memory

capacity and dual-process theories of the mind. Psychological bulletin, 130(4), 553.
 97

Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of consulting and clinical

psychology, 42(2), 155.

Ben-Zur, H. (2005). Coping, Distress, and Life Events in a Community Sample. International Journal of

Stress Management, 12(2), 188.

Ben-Zur, H., Gilbar, O., & Lev, S(2001). Coping with breast cancer; Patients, Spouse and dyad models.

Psychosomatic Medicine, 63, 32-39.

Blatt, S. J., & Shichman, S. (1983). Two primary configurations of psychopathology. Psychoanalysis &

Contemporary Thought.

Bowen, S., Witkiewitz, K., Dillworth, T.M. & Marlatt, G.A. (2007). The role of thought suppression in

the relation between mindfulness meditation and alcohol use. Addictive Behaviour, 32, 2324–

2328.

Bowers, K. S., & Woody, E. Z. (1996). Hypnotic amnesia and the paradox of intentional

forgetting. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(3), 381.

Breznitz, S. (Ed.). (1983). The denial of stress. New York: International Universities Press.

Breznitz, S. (Ed.). (1983). The denial of stress. New York: International.

 98

Burda, P. C., Vaux, A., & Schill, T. (1984). Social support resources: Variation across sex and sex role.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 10, 119–126.

Buss, D.M. (1990). Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: An Analysis of the negative

components of masculinity and femininity. Sex Roles, 22, 555–568.

Butler, T., Giordano, S., & Neren, S. (1985). Gender and sex-role attributes as predictors of utilization

of natural support systems during personal stress events. Sex Roles, 13, 515– 524.

Carver, C.S., & Connor-Smith, J. (2010). Personality and coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 61,

679_704.

Catanzaro, S. J., Horaney, F., & Creasey, G. (1995). Hassles, coping, and depressive symptoms in an

elderly community sample: The role of mood regulation expectancies. Journal of Counseling

Psychology, 42(3), 259.

Cooper, C., Katona, C., Orrell, M., & Livingston, G. (2008). Coping strategies, anxiety and depression

in caregivers of people with Alzheimer‘s disease. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry,

23, 929_936.

D'Zurilla, T. J., Chang, E. C., Nottingham IV, E. J., & Faccini, L. (1998). Social problem‐solving

deficits and hopelessness, depression, and suicidal risk in college students and psychiatric

inpatients. Journal of clinical psychology, 54(8), 1091-1107.

 99

Eastwood, J. D., Gaskovski, P., & Bowers, K. S. (1998). The folly of effort: Ironic effects in the mental

control of pain. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 46(1), 77-91.

Ehlers, A., Mayou, R. A., & Bryant, B. (1998). Psychological predictors of chronic posttraumatic stress

disorder after motor vehicle accidents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 107, 508–519.

Erskine, J.A.K. & Georgiou, G.J. (2010). Effects of thought suppression on eating behaviour in

restrained and non-restrained eaters. Appetite, 54, 499–503.

Erskine, J.A.K., Georgiou, G.J. & Kvavilashvili, L. (2010). I suppress therefore I smoke. Psychological

Science, 21, 1225-1230.

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1974). Attitudes toward objects as predictors of single and multiple

behavioral criteria. Psychologwal Revtew, 81, 59-74.

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1974). Attitudes towards objects as predictors of single and multiple

behavioral criteria. Psychological review, 81(1), 59.

Folkman, S., & R. S. (1986) Stress processes and depressive symptomatology. Journal of Abnormal

Psychology, 95, 107-113.

Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S. (1980). An analysis of coping in a middle aged community sample. Journal

of health and social behaviour, 21, 219-239.

 100

Freud, S. (1990). The psychopathology of everyday life. London: Norton. (Original work published

1901).

Fritz, H. L., & Helgeson, V. S. (1998). Distinctions of unmitigated communion from communion: Self-

neglect and Overinvolvement with others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75,

121- 140.

Garcia-Alberca, J.M., Cruz, B., Lara, J.P., Garrido, V., Gris, E., Lara, A., & Castilla, C. (2012).

Disengagement coping partially mediates the relationship between caregiver burden and anxiety

and depression in caregivers of people with Alzheimer‘s disease. Results from the M_ALAGA-

AD study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 136, 848_856.

Gunzerath, L. Connelly, and B. Albert. "P. & Knebel, A.(2001). Relationship of personality traits and

coping strategies to quality of life in patients with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency." Psychology,

Health & Medicine 6, no. 3: 335-341.

Heckman, T. G., Anderson, E. S., Sikkema, K. J., Kochman, A., Kalichman, S. C., & Anderson, T.

(2004). Emotional distress in nonmetropolitan persons living with HIV disease enrolled in a

telephone-delivered, coping improvement group intervention. Health Psychology, 23(1), 94.

Heckman, T. G., Kochman, A., Sikkeman, K. J., & Khalichman, S. C. (1999). Depressive

symptomatology, daily stressors, and ways of coping among middle-aged and older adults living

with HIV disease. Journal of Mental Health and Aging, 5, 311-322.

 101

Helgeson, V. S. (1993). Implications of agency and communion for patient and spouse adjustment to a

first coronary event. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 807-816.

Helgeson, V. S. (2003a). Unmitigated communion and adjustment to breast cancer: Associations and

explanations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1643–1661.

Helgeson, V. S. (2003b). Gender-related traits and health. In J. Suls & K. A. Wallston (Eds.), Social

psychological foundations of health and illness (pp. 367–394). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Helgeson, V.S. (1994). Relations of agency and communion to well-being: Evidence and potential

explanations. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 412–428.

Helgeson, V.S., & Fritz, H.L. (1998). A theory of unmitigated communion. Personality and Social

Psychology Review, 2, 173–183.

Hertel, P. T., & Calcaterra, G. (2005). Intentional forgetting benefits from thought

substitution. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12(3), 484-489.

James A.K. Erskine is in the School of Population Health Sciences and Education, St George’s,

University of London jerskine@sgul.ac.uk

 102

Johnston, L., Ward, T. & Hudson, S.M. (1997). Deviant sexual thoughts: Mental control and the

treatment of sexual offenders. Journal of Sex Research, 34, 121–130.

Kelly, A. E., & Nauta, M. M. (1997). Reactance and thought suppression. Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin, 23(11), 1123-1132.

Kessler, R. C., McLeod, J. D., & Wethington, E. (1985). The costs of caring: A perspective on the

relationship between sex and psychological distress. In I. G. Sarason&B. R. Sarason (Eds.),

Social support: Theory, research and applications (pp. 491–506). Dordrecht, The Netherlands:

Nijhoff.

King BJ, Council JR. 1998. Intentionality during hypnosis: an ironic process analysis. Int. J. Clin. Exp.

Hypn. 46:294–313.

King, B. J., & Council, J. R. (1998). Intentionality during hypnosis: An ironic process

analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 46(3), 295-313.

Krames, L., England, R., & Flett, G. L. (1988). The role of masculinity and femininity in depression and

social satisfaction in elderly females. Sex Roles, 19, 713–721.

Lepore, S. J. (1992). Social conflict, social support, and psychological distress: Evidence of cross-

domain buffering effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 857-867.
 103

Li, L. W., Seltzer, M. M., & Greenberg, J. S. (1999). Change in depressive symptoms among daughter

caregivers: An 18-month longitudinal study. Psychology and Aging, 14(2), 206.

Linden, W., Rutledge, T., & Con, A. (1998). A case for the usefulness of laboratory social stressors.

Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 20, 310-316.

Markowitz, L.J. & Purdon, C. (2008). Predictors and consequences of suppressing obsessions.

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 36, 179–192.

Marusic, A., & Goodwin, R. D. (2006). Suicidal and Deliberate Self‐Harm Ideation Among Patients

with Physical Illness: The Role of Coping Styles. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 36(3),

323-328.

Matthews, K. A., Siegel, J. M., Kuller, L. H., Thompson, M.,'& Varat, M. (1983) Determinants of

decisions to seek medical treatment by patients with acute myocardial infarction symptoms.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 1144-1156.

Matthews, K. A., Siegel, J. M., Kuller, L. H., Thompson, M.,'& Varat, M. (1983). Determinants of

decisions to seek medical treatment by patients with acute myocardial infarction symptoms.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 1144-1156.

McAdams, D. P., & Vaillant, G. E. (1982). Intimacy motivation and psychosocial adjustment: A

longitudinal study. Journal of Personality Assessment, 46(6), 586-593.

 104

McClelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. A., & Lowell, E. L. (1976). The achievement motive. New

York: Irvington.

Miller, L. (1982). Psychological services, coping with stress. Retrieved August 25, 2006, from

http://www.temple.edu/counseling/tipspy/stress 1.

Moos, R. H. (Ed.). (1986). Coping with life crisis: An integrated approach. New York: Plenum Press.

Muris P, Merckelbach H. 1997. Suppression and dissociation. Pers. Individ. Differ. 23:523–25.

Najmi, S., & Wegner, D. M. (2008). The gravity of unwanted thoughts: Asymmetric priming effects in

thought suppression. Consciousness and cognition, 17(1), 114-124.

Parsons, T. (86). Bales. RF (1955). Family, socialization and interaction process.

Purdon, C. (1999). Thought suppression and psychopathology. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37,

1029–1054.

Scheier, M. F., Weintraub, J. K., & Carver, C. S. (1986). Coping with stress: Divergent strategies of

optimists and pessimists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1257-1264.

Smith, T. W. (1992). Hostility and health: Current status of a psychosomatic hypothesis. Health

Psychology, 11, 139–150.

 105

Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R. L., & Stapp, J. (1974). The Personal Attributes Questionnaire: A measure

of sex-role stereotypes and masculinity-femininity. JSAS: Catalog of Selected Documents in

Psychology, 4, 43–44.

Stanton, A. L., Kirk, S. B., Cameron, C. L., & Danoff-Burg, S. (2000b). Coping through emotional

approach: Scale construction and validation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

78(6), 1150–1169.

Valentiner, D. P., Holahan, C. J., & Moos, R. H. (1994). Social support, appraisals of event

controllability, and coping: An integrative model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

66, 1094–1102.

Watson, D. C., & Sinha, B. K. (2000). Stress, emotion, and coping strategies as predictors of personality

disorder pathology. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 19(3), 279-294.

Wegner, D.M. & Erber, R. (1992). The hyperaccessibility of suppressed thoughts. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 903–912.

Wegner, D.M. & Erskine, J.A.K. (2003). Voluntary involuntariness. Consciousness and Cognition, 12,

684–694.

Wegner, D.M. & Zanakos, S. (1994). Chronic thought suppression. Journal of Personality, 62, 615–640.
 106

Wegner, D.M. (2009). How to think, say, or do precisely the worst thing for any occasion. Science, 325,

48–51.

Wegner, D.M., Schneider, D.J., Carter, S. &White, T. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought

suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 5–13.

Wenzlaff, R.M. & Wegner, D.M. (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 59–

91.

Wiggins, J. S., & Trapnell, P. D. (1997). Personality structure: The return of the Big Five. In Handbook

of personality psychology (pp. 737-765).

Wills, T. A., & Shiffman, S. (1985). Coping and substance use: A conceptual framework. Coping and

substance use, 3-24.

Wilson, J. F. (1981). Behavioral preparation for surgery: Benefit or harm"! Journal of Behavioral

Medicine, 4, 79-102.