Recollecting Events Associated with Victimization

Abstract

Subjects first completed social desirability and anxiety personality scales and then read a story about a woman meeting her brother for lunch. Some subjects were then told that the story involved sexual abuse. A week later all subjects took a multiple-choice memory test over the story. The results indicated that subjects categorized as repressors based on the personality scales had a lower proportion of negative than positive errors than did the nonrepressors, but only when they believed the story was about sexual abuse. However, repressors answered correctly as many items as did nonrepressors. The results were consistent with the idea that repressorsre-member as much about victimization experiences as do nonrepressors but are more likely to fill in the missing details of victimization experiences with positive reconstructions designed to reduce the over-all negative quality associated with victimization.