EFFECTS OF COPING STYLE AND METAMOTIVATIONAL STATE ON SUGGESTIBILITY

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of dispositional coping style and the metamotivational states of telic/paratelic and conformist/negativistic on interrogative suggestibility, as assessed by the GSS 1.51 first-year undergraduates, 25 problem-focused copers and 26 emotion-focused copers, were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions: induction of a conformist or a negativistic state. The telic and paratelic states were allowed to be freely occurring. One-tailed independent t-tests found that both coping style and metamotivational state had significant effects on the participants' suggestibility level: emotion-focused copers were more suggestible than problem-focused copers, and people in conformist/paratelic states were more suggestible than those in negativistic/telic states. In addition, results suggested some evidence of an interaction effect between coping style and metamotivational state insofar as the state effects only operated within the emotion-focused copers. The findings of this study may have implications in the forensic setting, especially in the area of false confessions.