Processing of information about self by neurotics
Young GCD., Martin M.
This article examines the possibility that neurotic people exhibit consistent idiosyncracies of cognitive information processing. Specifically, it was hypothesized that if a subject is presented with both negative and positive information which is said to refer to the subject's personality then neurotic people should exhibit a greater than normal tendency to selectively process the self-depreciatory rather than the self-appreciatory information. An experimental investigation with both clinically neurotic and normal samples employed a variety of experimental measures in conjunction with three personality measures (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Repression-Sensitization scale, and Social Self-esteem), and provided evidence for the existence of such an association.