Ambivalence and Male Religious Experience: An Autobiographical Study

I argue that what are typically identified as “calls from God” to an office of sacred power are filled with various degrees and types of ambivalence. This ambivalence becomes manifest (or not) to the person experiencing a call at various points in their lifespan and it exists for a number of reasons. I seek to unveil the psychodynamics responsible for these feelings of ambivalence. I argue that the awareness of feelings of ambivalence can be correlated with the degree of one’s happiness—specifically in one’s sexual and mental health; this point is marshaled throughout the essay by autobiographical examples of men who experienced some type of divine calling. In addition to psychoanalytic resources, I apply postmodern autobiographical criticism to this autobiographical study; my autobiographical notes are written in italics.     

The Health Benefits of Autobiographical Writing: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Journal of Medical Humanities - A large body of experimental evidence in the empirical sciences shows that writing about life experiences can be beneficial for mental and physical health. While...     

A Professor's Experience With Loss: An Autobiographical Case Study

The purpose of this article is to present an autobiographical case study chronicling a psychology professor's experience with grief and the loss of her father during the early stages of her academic career. The article highlights the obstacles faced in dealing with anticipatory grief but also demonstrates how clinicians and researchers may use adverse life circumstances to develop research and applied programs centered around their experiences. Rooted in Viktor Frankl's work on logotherapy, the author demonstrates how traumatic experiences can help psychologists find meaning and purpose in their work. Directions for future research focusing on larger scale populations are addressed.     

Involuntary Autobiographical Memories

Results from a diary study of involuntary memories are presented (14 subjects; 7 males, 7 females, average age 23 years). Virtually all of the recorded memories had identifiable cues. Memory access was biased towards (a) mood-congruent (b) recent and (c) distinctive (unusual) events. The memories were most frequently rated as emotionally positive and prior rehearsal was rated low. Also, the memories were found to influence current mood consonant with the emotional valence of the memories. Stressful and repetitive involuntary recollections—as they are observed in clinical settings subsequent to traumatic events—may be viewed as a malignant effect of normal mechanisms of involuntary memories.     

Autobiographical memories for places

The purpose of the present exploratory study was to investigate operations and contents of a naturally occurring reminiscence for physical places in 26 Swedish participants. Using Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's (2000) model of autobiographical memory as a framework, two main questions were examined. First, in what sense are physical places ingredients of our selves-that is, of our self-knowledge-and, if so, how are they and their characteristics organised in the autobiographical knowledge base? Second, what form do personal memories for places take and what kinds of meanings and emotional contents do we bind to this type of reminiscence? The results showed that the Swedish participants' most important places in their lives were mainly childhood- and cottage-related rural types of milieus, and mostly categorised as summarised events; that is, frequently revisited. The personal recollections of the place-related event-specific knowledge were mostly of the generic imagery type, comprising semantic, perceptual, and emotional contents related to the "self", "others", and the "environment". The memories mainly reflected on the participants' growth period and feelings of activation and pleasantness. This was more pronounced in older (M = 59) than in younger (M = 35) participants. All this indicates that physical places can serve as thematic pathways guiding reminiscence and self-knowing consciousness as we recollect details of perceptual, semantic, and emotional characters of periods in our lives.     

Autobiographical remembering and self-composing

A interpretive synopsis based on our empirical research and theoretical perspectives on autobiographical remembering and self-composing is presented. Conceptual links are made among Kelly's notions of personal constructs, autobiographical remembering, and self. The influences of attitudes on remembering personally significant information, either by oneself or with others, are emphasized. The possible functions of autobiographical remembering are explored through an ecological perspective. Two functions are identified: a coherence or unity function and an interpersonal function. A sense of coherence is achieved in (re)constructive or productive remembering; intimacies are established and maintained in productive interactions. It is proposed that a sense of self can be instantaneously experienced directly through an improvisational process of self-composition in autobiographical remembering and interacting.     

Autobiographical memories and self-schemata

Self-schemata associated with dependency were assessed in a group of nine adults. Subjects subsequently kept diary-type records of the three most memorable events occurring in their daily lives during a 3-week period. Free and cued recall memory tests for reported events were given approximately 5½ weeks after the completion of record keeping. A priori assessments of self-schemata were correlated with the kinds of daily events reported: independent subjects evaluated their events as more independent than did dependent subjects, and vice-versa. Free recall results suggested that the degree of schematicity found in assessment, and the nature of reported events, were correlated with memory. In cued recall no significant memory differences were found between independent and dependent subjects for schema-consistent or inconsistent events. Self-schemata apparently function as an effective retrieval environment in the absence of observable mnemonics. The data support the view that autobiographical recollections are reconstructions driven, in part, by self-schemata derived from life experiences.     

Autobiographical memories for places

The purpose of the present exploratory study was to investigate operations and contents of a naturally occurring reminiscence for physical places in 26 Swedish participants. Using Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's (2000) model of autobiographical memory as a framework, two main questions were examined. First, in what sense are physical places ingredients of our selves—that is, of our self-knowledge—and, if so, how are they and their characteristics organised in the autobiographical knowledge base? Second, what form do personal memories for places take and what kinds of meanings and emotional contents do we bind to this type of reminiscence? The results showed that the Swedish participants' most important places in their lives were mainly childhood- and cottage-related rural types of milieus, and mostly categorised as summarised events; that is, frequently revisited. The personal recollections of the place-related event-specific knowledge were mostly of the generic imagery type, comprising semantic, perceptual, and emotional contents related to the “self”, “others”, and the “environment”. The memories mainly reflected on the participants' growth period and feelings of activation and pleasantness. This was more pronounced in older (M = 59) than in younger (M = 35) participants. All this indicates that physical places can serve as thematic pathways guiding reminiscence and self-knowing consciousness as we recollect details of perceptual, semantic, and emotional characters of periods in our lives.     

Resilience and Protective Factors in Adolescence: An Autobiographical Perspective From Disadvantaged Youth

This article focuses on the development of adolescent resilience and protective factors within a sample of 86 inner-city high school students in Chicago. Resilience was considered present when (a) children living in conditions of risk (b) show better-than-predicted outcomes (c) presumably due to some intervening process. Conditions (a) and (b) were met using quantitative comparisons. Condition (c), the intervening process, was examined using autobiographical essays to begin to understand protective factors youth consider salient in overcoming adversity. Internal attributes such as perseverance, determination, and having the awareness to learn from the risk-attrition process surfaced in the content analyses. Motivational support from family members and teachers was also highly valued for promoting successful adjustment.     

An item response theory/confirmatory factor analysis of the Autobiographical Memory Test

The Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) is used to assess the degree of specificity of autobiographical memory. The AMT usually contains cue words of both positive and negative valence, but it is unclear whether these valences form separate factors or not. Accordingly, confirmatory factor analysis assessed whether the AMT measures one overall factor, or whether different cue types are related to different factors. Results were consistent across three datasets (N = 333, N = 405, and N = 336). A one-factor model fitted each dataset well, which suggests that responses to positive and negative cues are related to the one construct. In addition, item response theory analyses showed that the AMT is most precise for people who score low on memory specificity. Implications for using the AMT with high-functioning samples are discussed.     

自传记忆线索提取发展的实验研究

自传记忆是关于个人生活的记忆。发展心理学家以生命历程的视野来研究自传记忆的发生、发展、变化是自传记忆研究的重要组成部分。自传记忆的形成和发展可分为三个阶段 :即童年期遗忘、回忆高峰、自传记忆近因期。本实验采用 2 (提取方式 :顺时、自由回忆 )× 2 (性别 :男、女 )× 8(年龄 :8个年龄组 )混合设计 ,结果发现 :(1 )顺时提取与自由提取两种提取方式对自传记忆的提取存在年龄差异 ,不仅有提取速度的差异 ,也存在提取内容的差异。 (2 ) 8个年龄段两种提取条件下的平均提取速度具有一致的趋同性 ,呈U型曲线 ,存在自传记忆的回忆高峰。 (3)自传记忆的跨生命历程提取不存在性别差异 ,年龄、性别、提取方式间不存在交互作用。 (4) 8个年龄段自传记忆的提取速度、提取内容与个人各年龄的生活主题存在内在关联。 (5)从提取机制支持Conway关于生命历程自传记忆发展的三阶段假设     

Autobiographical memories of anxiety-related experiences

Ninety-nine undergraduate students retrieved three memories associated with each of the five emotional experiences: panic, trauma, worry, social anxiety, and feeling content. Subsequently, they answered 24 questions assessing properties of each memory, including the vividness and perceived accuracy of the memories and sensory, emotional, and anxiety-related experiences during retrieval. Memories were coded for affective tone and specificity. Results indicated that panic-related and trauma-related memories were rated similarly as content memories, but that they generally were associated with more imagery and emotional experiencing than worry-related or social anxiety-related memories. Participants experienced panic and worry symptoms to the greatest degree when they retrieved panic-related and trauma-related memories. All anxiety-related memories were characterized by more negative tone than content memories. Panic-related and trauma-related memories were more specific than worry-related, social anxiety-related, and content memories. These findings can explain partially why individuals with some, but not all, anxiety disorders experience enhanced memory for threatening material.     

Autobiographical memory deficits in schizophrenia

This study investigated autobiographical memory processes in a group of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls. The schizophrenia group displayed an overgeneral style of autobiographical memory retrieval on two widely used measures, and displayed problems retrieving both autobiographical facts and events. They showed a specific impairment in the recall of autobiographical events and facts in early adulthood, around the time of onset of their illness. Retrieval deficits were independent of mood state and premorbid intellectual functioning. The magnitude of the deficits in autobiographical memory retrieval specificity were considerably greater than any general impairments in episodic and working memory.     

Autobiographical memory and clinical anxiety

Abstract

Previous experiments on the recall of threatening and neutral information in clinically anxious subjects have yielded mixed results. The present study assessed autobiographical memory in patients with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and normal controls. Subjects were first presented with neutral cue words and asked to respond with any personal memory. GAD subjects judged the content of their own memories as more consistent with anxious mood, and less consistent with pleasant mood, than that reported by controls. Subjects were then again presented with neutral cue words, but with instructions to provide either “anxious” or “nonanxious” personal memories, on specified trials. Significant interactions between group and instruction condition indicated that anxious subjects recalled more anxiety-evoking memories, and recalled them more rapidly, relative to controls. Ratings by blind judges did not support the hypothesis that this apparent difference in the content of autobiographical recall was an artefact due to anxious subjects labelling memories as being more anxiety evoking than would controls. Possible explanations of the findings, and reasons for the apparent discrepancy between these and earlier results, are discussed.