A Controlled Study Of How Situational Stimulus Influence Individuals' Defense Mechanism And How The Change Of Defense Mechanism Influences Individuals' Anxiety Emotion

Objective: Using experiment method to investigate how situational stimulus influence individuals'defense mechanism and how the change of the categories and number of defense mechanism affects individuals'state anxiety emotion. Methods: In this study, students in Suzhou University were selected as subjects, and their defense mechanism were measured by DMM while sate anxiety emotion were examined by STAY-Form Y .90 subjects were divided into three groups randomly after their defense mechanism were assessed by DMM, which is positive evaluation group (P), negative evaluation group (N) and controlled group (C), then P group was given a high score for their imagination of TAT stories, while N group was given a low score, C group would be controlled. After that, subjects would continue finishing the TAT stories. Then, the paper would use DMM to assess their defense mechanism which showed in TAT stories again to explore whether their use of defense mechanism differed in three conditions. In addition, the paper probed into how the change of the categories and number of defense mechanism in N group influences subjects'state anxiety emotion.Results: 1.As a whole, subjects showed a high level of use of identification and projection more than denial, the order is identification>projection>denial. 2. Identification appeared in P group was more than C group. 3. Denial, projection and identification appeared in N group were all more than P and C group. 4. For N group, projection in male was more than female, while denial in male was less than female. 5. For N group, the state anxiety after experiment was negative correlative with identification.Conclusion: 1. The predominant defenses of late adolescents are identification and projection. 2. Individuals will use more age-appropriate defense mechanism in positive situation; however, they will use a defense from an earlier development level when they are in negative situation. 3. Individuals don't show sex differences in positive situation; but when they are put into negative situation, men use more projection than women, and less denial. 4. Identification is an effective defense to reduce the state anxiety of individuals.