Defensiveness is related to increased startle magnitude

Previous work has demonstrated that individuals with a repressive coping style (i.e. those high in defensiveness and low in trait anxiety) tend to show higher levels of physiological reactivity than non-repressors. The present study examined archival data from a two-session experiment to assess whether repressors would show greater reactivity as measured by the eye blink component of the acoustic startle response. Following Weinberger et al.’s (1979) fourfold repression taxonomy, and using the EPQ-L and EPQ-N scales as measures of defensiveness and anxiety, participants were identified as repressors, true low anxious, true high anxious, and defensive high anxious. Results revealed that defensiveness, but not repression per se, was associated with greater startle magnitude. The effect was observed in the first session, but not in the second. Implications for these findings are discussed.