Body-Product Attitudes as a Function of Repression-Sensitization

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between attitudes toward body-product concepts and individual differences in defenses against anxiety, as measured by the Byrne Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale (1965). It was expected that two groups of student Ss, repressors and sensitizers, would rate differentially a set of 21 body-product concepts assumed to be anxiety-arousing in this culture. Greater concept differentiation was shown by sensitizers but hypotheses predicting both lowered mean concept ratings and more negative ratings of anal-sexual body products by sensitizers were not confirmed. These findings were interpreted as lending minimal support to the construct validity of the R-S Scale. The data analyses further indicate the importance of age and sex as variables in the study of body-product attitudes.