Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (4): 820-825.

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Backfired? Immediate Enhancement Effect and Post-Suppression Rebound Effect of Thought Suppression

  

  • Received:2020-10-17 Revised:2021-06-21 Online:2022-07-20 Published:2022-07-20
  • Contact: Yan-Lin GUO

事与愿违?思维抑制中的立即增强效应和延迟反弹效应

李建升,郭彦麟,李学静,时琬舒,史继鹏,余月玫,徐玥歆   

  1. 西北师范大学
  • 通讯作者: 郭彦麟

Abstract: In daily life, individuals tend to experience unwanted intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts not only can interfere with an individual's attention and executive functioning, but also impair their performance on everyday tasks. In order to have good physical and mental health, individuals often need to suppress the occurrence of unwanted intrusive thoughts, namely, thought suppression. Thought suppression is one of the most commonly used self-regulation strategies of individuals, and it is the basic component of individual cognition. However, individuals may encounter immediate enhancement effect in the process of thought suppression. Individuals may encounter post-suppression rebound effect after thought suppression. Immediate enhancement effect refers to the effect of suppressing the enhancement of the expression of the target during suppression, while post-suppression rebound effect refers to the effect of suppressing the enhancement of the expression of the target after suppression. These two effects defeat the purpose of suppressing thoughts and can damage the mental health of normal individuals. More importantly, they are one of the predisposition factors of mental disorders and can also make mental disorders forms a vicious circle. Therefore, how to effectively reduce the above two effects and improve the efficiency of thought suppression has become an urgent problem to be solved in the study of thought suppression. In order to solve this problem, some researchers explored the internal processing mechanism of thought suppression, and successively proposed four theoretical models to explain the internal processing mechanism of thought suppression, namely, Distracter Associations, Ironic Process Theory, Goal Interruption and Motivational Inference Model. The four theoretical models explain the internal processing mechanism of thought suppression from the perspective of information processing and motivation respectively, and enhance our understanding of the working principle of thought suppression. Although there are disputes among theories, the Ironic Process Theory is the most widely accepted theory, which fully explains the processing mechanism of thought suppression. In addition, some researchers have looked for factors that affect thought suppression. Researchers found that individual's cognitive load, depressive mood, blood sugar levels, heart rate variability and mental disorders affected the immediate enhancement effect. The nature of distractions and inhibitory targets, depressive mood, motivational attributions (meta-cognitive), attachment styles, and dementia affected the post-suppression rebound effect. In short, existing studies had explored the internal processing mechanism of thought suppression, and also looked for many factors influencing the thought suppression. This is of great significance of the development and perfection of the theory of thought suppression and the improvement on the physical and mental health of individuals. However, in order to further improves the efficiency of thought suppression and effectively reduce the adverse effects of immediate enhancement effect and post-suppression rebound effect on individuals, there are still many important issues to be further explored. First, it is necessary to further improve the measurement methods of thought suppression. Secondly, future research should also explore the impact of the individual's situation on thought suppression. Thirdly, it is very important to integrate the theoretical explanation of thought suppression. Finally, it is of great significance to develop new thought suppression methods to improve the condition of patients with mental disorders.

Key words: thought suppression, immediate enhancement effect, post-suppression rebound effect, self-regulation strategies

摘要: 思维抑制作为一种重要的自我调节策略,对维护个体的心理健康具有重要意义。但在思维抑制的过程中,会出现立即增强效应或延迟反弹效应。本文在介绍思维抑制研究范式发展脉络的基础上,分别从信息加工和动机视角对思维抑制的加工机制及其影响因素进行了梳理,并据此指出未来研究应改进研究范式,考察环境变量对思维抑制的影响,整合理论解释以及开发改善精神障碍患者思维抑制的训练方法。

关键词: 思维抑制, 立即增强效应, 延迟反弹效应, 自我调节策略