Abstract
Subjects read stories depicting the death of an individual through either an accident or a terminal illness. The subjects then answered questions designed to measure the extent to which various defense mechanisms were elicited by the stories. In Experiment 1, the subjects used rationalization more than denial or repression after reading the accident story, but they used all three defenses with equal magnitude after the illness story. In Experiment 2, rationalization was again used more than denial after the accident story, and the two defenses were used with similar magnitude after the illness story. There may be specific trauma-defense relationships whose existence depends on specific characteristics of both the type of trauma and the type of defense mechanism.
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The authors wish to dedicate this paper to Isadora Landes Falk. Her life and love were the motivation for these studies.
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Gershuny, B.S., Burrows, D. The use of rationalization and denial to reduce accident-related and illness-related death anxiety. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 28, 161–163 (1990). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333994
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333994