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It was hypothesized that both sensitizers and repressers exceed those individuals falling in the middle of the distribution with respect to frequency and severity of illnesses. The 1st investigation utilized 2 independent samples of undergraduates (N = 173 and 319) who were given the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale and a health survey. Though there was no support for the curvilinearity hypothesis, on 12 of the health items in both samples sensitizers indicated greater frequency and/or severity of illness than did repressers. In the 2nd investigation, a subsample of 85 extreme scorers on the R-S Scale from a pool of 319 students were compared with respect to the number of visits made to the University Health Center during 1 academic yr. Analysis of variance indicated that male sensitizers do in fact seek medical help significantly more frequently than male repressers; for females, Health Center visits were unrelated to R-S scores. Individual differences with respect to such variables as susceptibility to disease, severity of illness, and speed of recovery seem to be in part a function of differences along specific personality dimensions. The present investigation represents an attempt to explore the role of the personality dimension of repressionsensitization (Byrne, 1964) in physical illness. Based on findings relating illness to stress and anxiety and also on data indicating that extreme repression involves negative physiological consequences, a curvilinear relationship was hypothesized with both sensitizers and repressers exceeding those individuals falling in the middle of the distribution with respect to frequency and severity of illnesses. The first investigation utilized two independent samples of undergraduates (N = 173 and 319) who were given the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale and a health survey. Though there was no support for the curvilinearity hypothesis, 12 of the health items were found to be significantly related to repression-sensitization in both samples as indicated by Pearson product-moment rs and a comparison of extreme scorers by analysis of variance. Compared to repressers, 1 The authors wish to express their appreciation to
Byrne et al. (Mon,) studied this question.