Margaret Van Wyk ’07and Tyler Zink ’07 Studied Relationship Between Thought Suppression and Self-Esteem

Margaret Van Wyk '07 (Chatham, N.J.) and Tyler Zink '07 (Walpole, Mass.) spent their summer at Hamilton doing research in psychology. Advised by Assistant Professor of Psychology Jennifer Borton, the two students carried out a study intended to "determine the relationship between thought suppression and self-esteem…[as well as] to measure effects for implicit self-esteem, a construct previously unaddressed with respect to thought suppression."

Suppressing negative thoughts about oneself has been shown to decrease self-esteem. Acting on suggestions from Borton, whose research deals with thought suppression, and from Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Mark Oakes, whose research focuses on social cognition assessment tools, Van Wyk and Zink decided to investigate the relationship between thought-suppression and implicit self-esteem, a self-evaluation that occurs below the level of awareness.

Van Wyk and Zink asked 82 participants to identity their most negative and upsetting thought about themselves. The participants were then randomly assigned to either suppress that thought or not during a five minute stream-of-consciousness writing task. They then completed measure of their self-esteem, both implicit and explicit, as well as a measure of suppression effort.

The results suggest that suppressing thoughts significantly affects explicit self-esteem and somewhat effects implicit. Participants who reported trying harder to suppress thoughts had lower implicit and explicit self-esteem, which does support the claim that thought-suppression can affect implicit self-esteem.

Both rising seniors hope to attend graduate school for clinical psychology and chose to do summer work in order to get more lab and research experience. While their summer's work has yielded good results and perhaps a presentation spot at a National Social Psychology conference, both students plan to research different topics for their respective senior theses.

Van Wyk, a psychology major, is vice president of the psychology honor society Chi Psi, a member of HAVOC, and a TA for Statistics in Psychological Research. She has also acted as a thesis research assistant for various senior psychology students. Zink, a double major in math and psychology, is president of Chi Psi, vice president of the TKE fraternity, founder of a campus psychology club Psyched about Psych, a Levitt Scholar, and a TA and peer tutor. Both students plan graduate work in clinical psychology; Van Wyk hopes to work with children and Zink to teach university-level psychology or work in a psychiatric hospital.

-- Lisbeth Redfield