---
title: "Suppression in Cognitive Psychology"
description: "Suppression is the conscious effort to keep unwanted thoughts or memories out of awareness, a major idea in Cognitive Psychology and memory distortion."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/cognitive-psychology/key-terms/suppression"
type: "key-term"
subject: "Cognitive Psychology"
unit: "Unit 7"
---

# Suppression in Cognitive Psychology

## Definition

Suppression is the conscious effort to push unwanted thoughts or memories out of awareness. In Cognitive Psychology, it is studied as a way people try to control memory, emotion, and attention, sometimes with side effects like rebound thoughts or distortion.

## What It Is

Suppression in Cognitive Psychology is the deliberate, conscious attempt to keep a thought, memory, or image from entering awareness. You notice the thought, then try not to think about it, recall it, or let it guide what you feel next. That makes it different from forgetting by accident, because suppression is an active mental control strategy.

A classic way to think about suppression is as a mental filter. If something upsetting, embarrassing, or distracting pops up, you may try to shut it down so you can keep focusing on class, work, or a conversation. In the short term, that can reduce distress. It can also help explain why people seem calm on the outside while still using a lot of mental effort internally.

Cognitive psychology cares about suppression because memory is not just storage, it is retrieval and control. When you suppress a memory, you are not erasing it like deleting a file. You are trying to block access to it. That matters because blocked material can still leave traces, and those traces may show up later as intrusive thoughts, emotional reactions, or partial recall.

Suppression is often discussed with trauma, anxiety, and PTSD because people sometimes try to keep painful experiences out of awareness. The catch is that trying hard not to think about something can make it come back stronger later. Research on memory control shows a rebound effect in some situations, where the unwanted memory becomes more accessible after repeated attempts to avoid it.

It also connects to memory distortion. When you repeatedly suppress a memory, you may remember it less clearly, leave out details, or mix it up with related events. That does not mean the memory is gone. It means the usual pathways for retrieving it have been disrupted, which can change how the event is remembered and described later.

A simple example is preparing for a presentation after a bad public-speaking experience. You might try to suppress the memory of freezing up last time so you can stay focused. If the suppression works for a while, you feel less distracted. If it backfires, the old memory may intrude more, which can increase anxiety right when you need concentration most.

## Why It Matters

Suppression matters because it sits right at the intersection of attention, memory, and emotion, which are core topics in Cognitive Psychology. It shows that remembering is not passive. You can try to steer what enters awareness, but that control can change what gets recalled later.

The concept also helps explain why people’s reports of the past are not always clean or complete. If someone has spent years trying not to think about a painful event, their recall may be patchy, emotionally charged, or organized around fragments instead of a full timeline. That is useful when you are analyzing memory distortion, trauma-related thinking, or why someone’s memory confidence does not always match accuracy.

Suppression is especially useful when comparing normal memory control with clinical patterns. A student might use suppression to get through a stressful day, while a person with anxiety may rely on it so often that it increases mental fatigue and intrusive thoughts. In other words, the same strategy can look adaptive in one moment and costly over time.

It also gives you a lens for real-life situations like eyewitness accounts, therapy discussions, or exam questions about why a memory becomes less accessible without being erased. If you can spot suppression, you can explain both the short-term goal and the long-term tradeoff.

## Connections

### Repression

Repression is usually described as unconscious blocking of painful material, while suppression is conscious and intentional. In a Cognitive Psychology class, that difference matters because suppression is a control process you can report directly, while repression is harder to observe and is often discussed more in psychodynamic theory. If a scenario says someone is actively trying not to think about an event, suppression is the better fit.

### Memory Distortion

Suppression can feed memory distortion by weakening access to details or changing how an event is organized in recall. When you repeatedly avoid a memory, you may later remember pieces out of order, leave out context, or blend it with other experiences. This is why suppression shows up in discussions of inaccurate recollection, not just forgetting.

### [False Memories](/cognitive-psychology/key-terms/false-memories)

False memories are remembered events that never happened or happened differently, and suppression can make them more likely in indirect ways. If real details are hard to access because they have been pushed away, the mind may fill gaps with guesses, schemas, or outside suggestions. That does not mean suppression automatically creates false memories, but it can create the conditions for them.

### [Source Monitoring Errors](/cognitive-psychology/key-terms/source-monitoring-errors)

Source monitoring errors happen when you remember information but mix up where it came from. Suppression can make this worse because the original memory trace may be less clear, which makes it harder to tell whether an image came from personal experience, a story, or imagination. In essay or case analysis, this helps explain why someone sounds confident but is still mistaken.

## On the AP Exam

A quiz question or case prompt will usually ask you to identify suppression when a person is consciously trying not to think about a memory, especially one that is upsetting. The move is to separate it from simple forgetting and from repression. If the scenario mentions deliberate mental blocking, emotional avoidance, or an effort to keep a memory out of awareness, name suppression and explain the likely tradeoff: short-term relief, possible rebound thoughts, and less reliable recall later.

In written responses, you can trace the chain from suppression to memory distortion. For example, you might explain that repeated attempts to avoid a traumatic event can leave details fragmented, which affects how the person later reports the event. If the prompt involves eyewitness testimony or intrusive thoughts, connect suppression to access, accuracy, and emotional control rather than treating memory like a recording.

## suppression vs repression

These terms are easy to mix up, but they are not the same thing. Suppression is conscious and deliberate, like choosing not to think about something. Repression is usually described as unconscious, where the mind keeps distressing material out of awareness without a person intentionally doing that.

## Key Takeaways

- Suppression is the conscious attempt to keep an unwanted thought or memory out of awareness.
- It can lower distress in the short term, but it does not erase the memory and may increase rebound thoughts later.
- In Cognitive Psychology, suppression matters because it shows how attention and memory control can change what you recall and how accurately you recall it.
- Repeated suppression can contribute to memory distortion, especially when details become fragmented or harder to trace back to their source.
- If a scenario shows intentional mental blocking of a painful memory, suppression is usually the term you want, not simple forgetting.

## FAQs

### What is suppression in Cognitive Psychology?

Suppression is the conscious effort to push an unwanted thought, image, or memory out of awareness. It is studied as a form of mental control, especially in relation to attention, emotional regulation, and memory. The big idea is that the memory is still there, even if you are trying not to access it.

### How is suppression different from repression?

Suppression is intentional and conscious, while repression is usually described as unconscious. If someone knows they are avoiding a painful memory, that is suppression. If a theory says the mind is automatically keeping distressing material out of awareness, that points more toward repression.

### Can suppression cause memory problems?

Yes, especially when someone uses it repeatedly. It can make memories less accessible, blur details, and increase the chance of distortion or rebound thinking later. The memory is not necessarily gone, but retrieval can become less reliable.

### How do you identify suppression in a psychology scenario?

Look for an active attempt to not think about something. The person may be avoiding a traumatic event, distracting themselves from an embarrassing mistake, or trying to keep a disturbing image from returning. If the prompt emphasizes conscious control over recall, suppression is the right label.

## Related Study Guides

- [7.3 Forgetting and Memory Distortions](/cognitive-psychology/unit-7/forgetting-memory-distortions/study-guide/zrj4K46AaOf8jqTH)

## About This Document

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