Selection of Vigilant and Avoidant Coping Strategies among Repressors, Highly Anxious and Truly Low Anxious Subjects

Abstract

70 female graduate students from a western university were classified as to personality type: Highly Anxious, Truly Low Anxious, and Repressing, using a combination of scores from the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scales. Each subject's preference for monitor or blunter coping strategy was assessed via the Miller Behavioral Style Scale. Highly Anxious subjects chose significantly more monitor strategies than did Truly Low Anxious subjects or Repressors. The number of blunter strategies chosen did not differ across personality types. Chi-squared indicated that Highly Anxious subjects were more often classified as monitors than blunters whereas the proportions of monitors and blunters did not significantly differ between Truly Low Anxious subjects and Repressors. Results suggest that the repressor trait is distinct from avoidant and vigilant coping strategies.