The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale was used as a measure of defensiveness in conjunction with Byrne's Repression-Sensitization Scale to differentiate defensive and nondefensive repressors. All Ss were given a series of sentences partially masked with white noise. Defensive repressors had a significantly higher auditory perceptual threshold for sexual sentences than either sensitizers or nondefensive repressors. Results were interpreted as support for using a measure of defensiveness to differentiate the “true” repressor from Ss who obtain low Byrne scores simply because they lack the pathology implied in the test items.
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