Parental Restrictiveness of Negative Emotions: Sowing the Seeds of Thought Suppression

Richard M. Wenzlaff and Ann R. Eisenberg

Division of Behavioral and Cultural Sciences University of Texas at San Antonio

Research on parental socialization of emotion high-
lights an interesting irony by showing that parents who
attempt to restrict their children's expression of nega-
tive feelings are especially likely to produce children
who have emotional problems and social skill deficits.
Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad consider a vari-
ety of potential explanations for this state of affairs, in-
cluding maladaptive learning, overarousal, unrealistic
expectations, and emotional constriction. An unex-
plored possibility, however, involves the high inci-
dence of avoidant coping observed in these children
( Eisenberg & Fabes, 1994; Eisenberg, Fabes, & Murphy, 1996). Mental control research suggests that
efforts to avoid unacceptable thoughts and feelings
may set into motion a process that can ultimately un-
dermine emotional well-being.

Although the experimental study of thought sup-
pression has attracted considerable attention among
social and clinical investigators (for reviews, see
Polivy, 1998; Purdon & Clark, in press; Wegner, 1994;
Wegner & Wenzlaff, 1996), it has not yet had an appre-
ciable impact on developmental research. By high-
lighting the relationship between parental responses
and children's avoidant coping, however, Eisenberg et
al. provide the impetus for considering how issues of
mental control may relate to emotional development.
The existing evidence suggests that using thought sup-
pression to control undesirable feelings may not only
prevent the child from developing an adequate under-
standing of the complexities of emotional life, but it
can also backfire, ironically promoting the emotional
state it was meant to avoid.

Although researchers in developmental psychology
acknowledge an association between avoidant coping
and developmental problems ( Finnegan, Hodges, & Perry, 1996; Lengua & Sandler, 1996), they have gen-
erally overlooked the possibility that the process of
thought suppression may itself contribute to emotional
maladjustment. This prospect, however, is suggested
by recent research showing that thought suppression
can produce ironic effects in the form of mental and
emotional states that are contrary to intentions. A con-
sideration of this work can provide a new conceptual
framework for understanding the consequences of re-
strictive parental responses to children's negative
emotions. Before examining the process and impact of
thought suppression, we consider how parents' reac-
tions to their children's emotions can promote this type
of avoidant coping.

Eisenberg et al. identified two types of parental re-
sponses to negative affect that are associated with
avoidant coping by children: the threat or imposition of
negative consequences and the dismissal of the child's
feelings. By overtly discouraging the expression of neg-
ative feelings, these parental responses implicitly en-
courage children to suppress the offensive emotions. It
is worth noting that the type of negative emotions we are
concerned with here is not the aggressive or harmful va-
riety, but the nondestructive, negative affect that often
accompanies normal development. Thus, in the face of
parental restrictions and in the absence of an overt be-
havior to target, the child is likely to focus suppression
efforts on the unacceptable emotional state itself.

A child probably does not need sophisticated cogni-
tive abilities to recognize that, although emotional
states cannot be directly turned on or off, it is possible
to change them by altering one's thoughts. As early as
age 5, children report that they use behavioral distrac-
tion (e.g., "do something else") to cope with negative
emotions ( Altschuler & Ruble, 1989). Thus, when
children encounter prohibitions on the expression of
emotion--particularly in the absence of the provision
of comfort or assistance in coping with the emo-
tion--the suppression of negative thoughts may ap-
pear to be an expedient way of complying with their
parents' restrictions. Unfortunately, the allure of
thought suppression masks a process that can ironi-
cally foster the mental state one had hoped to avoid.

The theory of ironic processes ( Wegner, 1994,
1997; Wegner & Wenzlaff, 1996) states that mental
control involves both an intentional operating process,
which seeks thoughts that will promote the preferred
state, and an ironic monitoring system, which searches
for mental contents that signal the failure to achieve the
desired state. Each process increases the accessibility
of the mental contents for which it is searching. There-
fore, when a person is trying to be happy, the operating
process seeks mental contents pertinent to happiness,
while the monitoring process remains alert for
thoughts that indicate happiness has not been achieved.
Although the operating process ...