Abstract
Individuals fail to suppress certain thoughts, especially under conditions that tax cognitive resources. We investigated the impact of modifying psychological reactance pressures on thought suppression attempts. Participants were asked to suppress thoughts of a target item under standard experimental conditions or under conditions designed to lower reactance pressures. In the presence of high cognitive load, weakening associated reactance pressures resulted in greater success at suppression. The results suggest that reducing relevant motivational pressures can facilitate thought suppression, even when an individual experiences cognitive limitation.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0282197 |
| Journal | PloS one |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 3 March |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 Wallaert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.