If there are stable individual differences in recognition thresholds to emotional stimuli (I.e., some people are characteristically Repressors and others are characteristically Sensitizers), the it might be possible to construct a scale to measure REPRESSION-SENSITIZATION (R-S).

Altrocci developed the R-S index using a mathematical combination of MMPI scales:

R-S = (D + Pt + A) - (L + K + Hy).

A positive score would mean you are a sensitizer; a negative score means you are a repressor. One problem with this method was that some MMPI items are scored on more than one scale; so 1 item could have more than 1 contribution to either R or S, or could in fact count on both the R and S dimensions. So Byrne revised the R-S scale so that each item was scored only once and inconsistently scored items were eliminated. This revised 127 item scale had a split half reliability of r = .94 and a test-retest reliability of r = .82.

A validity study conducted by TEMPONE, evaluated how well the R-S scale would predict perceptual defense/vigilance in a t-scope task. 40 Repressors (scoring below the 25th percentile) and 40 Sensitizers (scoring above the 75th percentile) first took an anagram task with false feedback. Specifically, they were assigned to one of two feedback conditions: Failure (where subjects were told that they gave the most creative answer on only 2 of 8 anagrams) and Success (subjects were told that they gave the most creative answer on 6 of 8 anagrams). Subjects were also told the “most creative solutions”. Next subjects were placed in a t-scope recognition task where they were exposed to 3 practice words, the 8 correct anagram solutions, and 8 new neutral words (matched to the correct anagram solutions on the basis of word length and word-frequency). Of these stimuli, theoretically only the 8 correct anagram solutions experienced during the Failure condition would be threatening to subjects. It was hypothesized that Repressors would require longer exposure durations to recognize these threatening anagrams and that Sensitizers would require shorter exposure durations. Guess what happened!

Results: No difference between Repressors and Sensitizers in recognizing the 8 new neutral words and no difference between these two groups in recognizing the correct anagram solutions if they had been in the Success condition. Repressors required longer exposure durations to recognize the threatening anagrams and Sensitizers required shorter exposure durations. The results were interpreted as supportive of the validity of the R-S scale as a measure perceptual recognition of emotional material.