Suppressing urges and thoughts? Think again.

“Way down deep, we’re all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.”
– Jim Davis

Everyone has urges. Some of those urges are natural and healthy (when they’re not abused, e.g. sex, eating), some are neutral (again, when not abused, e.g. thinking of a big screen TV or a new fancy car), while others are artificial and destructive (e.g. drugs).

What happens with an individual when it becomes the subject of destructive urges? Usually, he tries to suppress them by distracting or talking himself out of them. Lack of education in the aspect and the somehow natural feeling that suppression is the right thing to do are at least two of the factors contributing to it. But suppression usually just feeds the urges and creates the illusion that they are conquered and under control.

Suppressing a thought, feeling or sensation, including pain, ultimately increases it.

David Schneider (professor or psychology at Rice University), demonstrated this paradoxical effect of thought suppression in a research study he collaborated on in the 1980s at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research paper, published in 1987 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was recently selected as a “modern classic” by four prominent social psychologists.

The original white bear paper documented the fact that people can, but only for brief periods of time, suppress thoughts of white bears. But on removal of suppression instructions, people are typically flooded with the thoughts they were supposed to suppress.

– David Schneider

For the experiment, study participants were given five minutes to state the thoughts that were going through their heads, but they were instructed not to think of a white bear. They had to ring a bell each time they thought of one.

The bear was chosen because one of the researchers remembered reading that when Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky challenged his brother not to think of a white bear, the brother remained perplexed for quite a while.

In the first phase of the study, the one in which they were asked to not think of a white bear, the frequent rings tallied in the study results indicated that the participants were unable to suppress the thought.

In the next phase of the study, participants were asked to think about a white bear for five minutes, and they performed better on this task than did participants who were never asked to suppress the thought earlier.

“These observations suggest that attempted thought suppression has paradoxical effects as a self-control strategy, perhaps even producing the very obsession or preoccupation that it is directed against.“

As John Dewey observed, “The hard drinker who keeps thinking of not drinking is doing what he can to initiate the acts which lead to drinking. He is starting with the stimulus to his habit.“

Mental control is one key to mental peace, and we need to understand it better if we hope to use it effectively.

Extra resource (pdf format):
The White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI)
Focuses on Failing Suppression Attempts

photo by: Neno°