Ironic Effects of Thought Suppression: A Meta-Analysis.

The ironic effect of thought suppression refers to the phenomenon in which individuals trying to rid their mind of a target thought ironically experience greater levels of occurrence and accessibility of the thought compared with individuals who deliberately concentrate on the thought (Wegner, 1994, doi:10.1037/0033-295X.101.1.34). Ironic effects occurring after thought suppression, also known as rebound effects, were consistently detected by previous meta-analyses. However, ironic effects that occur during thought suppression, also known as immediate enhancement effects, were found to be largely absent. In this meta-analysis, we test Wegner’s original proposition that detection of immedia…