Four dimensions of self-defining memories (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationships to self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness

This study examines four dimensions of self-defining memory (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationship to self-restraint, distress, and defensiveness. The development and validation of a protocol for measuring specificity, meaning, and affect in self-defining memories is discussed. Specificity is operationalized as the temporal and detailed specificity of the narrative. Meaning refers to the participant's stepping back from the narrative to derive higher personal meaning or a life lesson. Affect reflects subjective emotion upon recall. Agreement between two raters scoring 1040 memories was kappa=.83 for specificity and kappa=.72 for meaning. The protocol is compatible with Thorne and McLean's scoring system for content (the types of events in memories). The current study compared individual differences in the four dimensions of 10 self-defining memories collected from 103 undergraduates to scores of self-restraint, distress, and repressive defensiveness, as measured by the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory. Memory specificity was inversely related to repressive defensiveness, while greater memory meaning was linked to moderate and high levels of self-restraint. Memory content and affect predicted individuals' degree of subjective distress. Based on these findings, the authors discuss the place of self-defining memories in Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's Self-Memory System model of autobiographical memory and personality, more generally.     

Exploring self-defining memories in schizophrenia

Previous studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia are impaired in recalling specific events from their personal past. However, the relationship between autobiographical memory impairments and disturbance of the sense of identity in schizophrenia has not been investigated in detail. In this study the authors investigated schizophrenic patients’ ability to recall self-defining memories; that is, memories that play an important role in building and maintaining the self-concept. Results showed that patients recalled as many specific self-defining memories as healthy participants. However, patients with schizophrenia exhibited an abnormal reminiscence bump and reported different types of thematic content (i.e., they recalled less memories about past achievements and more memories regarding hospitalisation and stigmatisation of illness). Furthermore, the findings suggest that impairments in extracting meaning from personal memories could represent a core disturbance of autobiographical memory in patients with schizophrenia.     

Continuity and correlates of emotions and motives in self-defining memories

Two studies examined emotions and motives in self-defining memories. In Study 1, participants recalled five self-defining memories (four recent and one earliest childhood), rated their emotions and motives during each memory, and completed a set of personality measures. A subset of participants provided a second set of memories, as well as emotion and motive ratings, approximately 2 weeks after the initial session. Results suggest that emotions and motives are moderately stable across memories and over time and show theoretically meaningful relations with self-esteem, narcissism, and affective dispositions. Study 2 extended the findings of Study 1 to a longitudinal context. Emotions and motives coded from self-defining memories were associated with changes in personality, well-being, and academic performance over a 4-year period.     

Giving meaning to illness: An investigation of self-defining memories in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients

Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients are often unable to adequately fulfill their established roles due to physical disabilities and cognitive changes, making this chronic illness particularly threatening to personal identity. Twenty-five MS patients and 25 healthy controls were asked to recall five self-defining memories (SDM). Overall characteristics of SDM did not differ between patients and controls; MS patients displayed preserved capacity to draw meaning upon past events. Moreover, almost two-thirds of MS patients mentioned at least one illness related SDM and about 25% of patients’ SDM referred to MS. These memories were experienced as more negative and associated with more tension than other SDM but led toward more positive emotion and less negative emotion over time; they were also more central and more integrated to the personal identity. We concluded that self-challenging events due to MS may trigger both cognitive and emotional processes enabling the integration of illness in patients’ self-representations.     

A content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories: examining the positivity effect in old age

Although research on autobiographical memory is growing steadily, very little is known about involuntary autobiographical memories that are spontaneously recalled in everyday life. In addition, very few studies have examined the actual content of autobiographical memories and how the content might change as a function of age. The present study carried out a content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories recorded by young (N = 11) and old (N = 10) volunteers over a period of 1 week. A total of 224 memories were classified into 17 categories according to the type of content recalled (e.g., births, holidays, school). The results support the socioemotional theory of ageing (Carstensen, Isaacowitz & Charles, 1999) by showing that although young and old adults recalled a similar number of memories with a typically positive content (e.g., holidays, special occasions), older adults recalled very few memories with a typically negative content (e.g., accidents, stressful events). Moreover, even when such negative memories were recalled, they were rated by older adults as neutral or even positive. This so-called positivity effect in old age could not be entirely explained by participants' ratings of mood at the time of recall. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for ageing and autobiographical memory research are discussed.     

Emotion and false memory: How goal-irrelevance can be relevant for what people remember

Elaborating on misleading information concerning emotional events can lead people to form false memories. The present experiment compared participants’ susceptibility to false memories when they elaborated on information associated with positive versus negative emotion and pregoal versus postgoal emotion. Pregoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure is anticipated but has not yet occurred (e.g., hope and fear). Postgoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure has already occurred (e.g., happiness and devastation). Participants watched a slideshow depicting an interaction between a couple and were asked to empathise with the protagonist's feelings of hope (positive pregoal), happiness (positive postgoal), fear (negative pregoal), or devastation (negative postgoal); in control conditions, no emotion was mentioned. Participants were then asked to reflect on details of the interaction that had occurred (true) or had not occurred (false), and that were relevant or irrelevant to the protagonist's goal. Irrespective of emotional valence, participants in the pregoal conditions were more susceptible to false memories concerning goal-irrelevant details than were participants in the other conditions. These findings support the view that pregoal emotions narrow attention to information relevant to goal pursuit, increasing susceptibility to false memories for irrelevant information.     

The retrieval of self-defining memories is associated with the activation of specific working selves

This article presents two studies that investigated the impact of the retrieval of self-defining memories on individuals' sense of self. Participants recalled positive and/or negative self-defining memories, rated memory characteristics and completed measures focusing on different self-aspects. Study 1 found that participants reported higher state self-esteem after recalling a positive memory than after recalling a negative one. They also reported lower negative self-consistency and higher state self-concept clarity and positive self-consistency, but this result became non-significant after controlling for state self-esteem. Study 2 found that participants reported higher state self-esteem, a marginally higher proportion of recreation/exploration, goals and a marginally lower proportion of achievement goals after recalling a positive memory than after recalling a negative one. They also reported a higher proportion of self-cognitions referring to emotional states after recalling memories from which they had not abstracted meaning than after recalling memories from which they had done this. These findings suggest that the retrieval of vivid, emotional and highly self-relevant memories may be accompanied by the activation of specific self-representations or working selves. They also suggest that the experience of memory-related intrusive images may temporarily influence individuals' sense of self. The implications of these findings for clinical practice are discussed.     

Socioemotional selectivity in older adults: Evidence from the subjective experience of angry memories

Few studies have compared the phenomenological properties of younger and older adults' memories for emotional events. Some studies suggest that younger adults remember negative information more vividly than positive information whereas other studies suggest that positive emotion yields phenomenologically richer memories than negative emotion for both younger and older adults. One problem with previous studies is a tendency to treat emotion as a dichotomous variable. In contrast, emotional richness demands inclusion of assessments beyond just a positive and negative dimension (e.g., assessing specific emotions like anger, fear and happiness). The present study investigated different properties of autobiographical remembering as a function of discrete emotions and age. Thirty-two younger and thirty-one older adults participated by recalling recent and remote memories associated with six emotional categories and completed the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire for each. Results demonstrated that older adults' angry memories received lower ratings on some phenomenological properties than other emotional memories whereas younger adults' angry memories did not show this same pattern. These results are discussed within the context of socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Trait dissociation and the subjective affective, motivational, and phenomenological experience of self-defining memories

The present research reports 2 studies that examine the relation between nonpathological trait dissociation and the subjective affect, motivation, and phenomenology of self-defining memories. In Study 1 (N=293), participants retrieved and rated the emotional and motivational experience of a general and a positive and negative achievement-related memory. Study 2 (N=449) extended these ratings to relationship-related memories and the phenomenological experience of the memory. Dissociation was associated with incongruent affect in valenced memories (e.g., positive affect in a negative memory) and memories that were visually incoherent and saturated with power motivation, hubristic pride, and shame, regardless of valence or domain. The present findings demonstrate that autobiographical memories, which integrate emotional, motivational, and phenomenological components, reflect the emotional and motivational processes inherent to dissociation.     

Culture,Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States

We tested the hypothesis that “good feelings”—the central element of subjective well-being—are associated with interdependence and interpersonal engagement of the self in Japan, but with independence and interpersonal disengagement of the self in the United States. Japanese and American college students (total N = 913) reported how frequently they experienced various emotional states in daily life. In support of the hypothesis, the reported frequency of general positive emotions (e.g. calm, elated) was most closely associated with the reported frequency of interpersonally engaged positive emotions (e.g. friendly feelings) in Japan, but with the reported frequency of interpersonally disengaged positive emotions (e.g. pride) in the United States. Further, for Americans the reported frequency of experience was considerably higher for positive emotions than for negative emotions, but for Japanese it was higher for engaged emotions than for disengaged emotions. Implications for cultural constructions of emotion in general and subjective well-being in particular are discussed.     

Age Differences in Perceived Positive Affect, Negative Affect, and Affect Balance in Middle and Old Age

Meta-analysis was used to synthesize findings from 125 studies on age differences in positive affect, negative affect, and affect balance. We found a small age-associated decline of positive affect and affect balance, and a small age-associated increase of negative affect. In addition, a quadratic age trend emerged, showing stronger declines of positive affect and stronger increases of negative affect in older subjects. Looking at changes of specific emotions, we found an age-associated decline of those positive and negative feelings that are associated with high arousal (e.g., feeling excited or upset), and an age-associated increase of positive and negative low-arousal emotions (e.g., feeling relaxed or depressed). Furthermore, older adults from the former communist Eastern European countries showed the strongest age-associated decline of positive affect and the strongest age-associated increase of negative affect. We conclude that age-associated losses in the oldest old and economic hardship make the optimization of subjective well-being increasingly difficult.     

Specificity deficit in the recollection of emotional memories in schizophrenia

The influence of emotion on episodic and autobiographical memory in schizophrenia was investigated. Using an experiential approach, the states of awareness accompanying recollection of pictures from the IAPS and of associated autobiographical memories was recorded. Results show that schizophrenia impairs episodic and autobiographical memories in their critical feature: autonoetic awareness, i.e., the type of awareness experienced when mentally reliving events from one's past. Schizophrenia was also associated with a reduction of specific autobiographical memories. The impact of stimulus valence on memory performance was moderated by clinical status. Patients with schizophrenia recognized more positive than negative pictures, and recalled more positive than negative autobiographical memories while controls displayed the opposite pattern. A hypothesis in terms of a fundamental executive deficit underlying these impairments is proposed.     

Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for positive,negative, and neutral events

We investigated memory qualities for positive, negative, and neutral autobiographical events. Participants recalled two personal experiences of each type and then rated their memories on several characteristics (e.g. sensorial and contextual details). They also reported whether they ‘see’ the events in their memories from their own perspective (‘field’ memories) or whether they ‘see’ the self engaged in the event as an observer would (‘observer’ memories). Positive memories contained more sensorial (visual, smell, taste) and contextual (location, time) details than both negative and neutral events, whereas negative and neutral memories did not differ on most dimensions. Positive and negative events were more often recollected with a field perspective than neutral events. Finally, participants were classified in four groups according to the repressive coping style framework. Emotional memories of repressors were not less detailed than those of the other groups. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fairness lies in the heart of the beholder: How the social emotions of third parties influence reactions to injustice

The present research explores third parties’ (e.g., jurors, ombudsmen, auditors, and employees observing others’ encounters) ability to objectively judge fairness. More specifically, the current research suggests that third parties’ justice judgments and reactions are biased by their attitudes toward the decision recipient and, in particular, the affective aspect of those attitudes as characterized by their felt social emotions. We explore how the congruence of a social emotion (i.e., the extent to which the emotion reflects feeling a subjective sense of alignment with the target of the emotion) can influence their evaluations of recipients’ decision outcomes. The five studies presented show that congruence can lead third parties to react positively to objectively unfair decision outcomes and, importantly, that the influence of social emotions on subjective justice judgments drive third party reactions to decisions, decision makers, and even national policies.     

The communication of emotion during conflict in married couples

This study investigated emotion during interpersonal conflicts between mates. It addressed questions about how clearly couples express emotion (encoding), how accurately they recognize each other's emotion (decoding), and how well they distinguish between types of negative emotion. It was theorized that couples express and perceive both: (a) event-specific emotions, which are unique to particular people on particular occasions, and (b) contextual-couple emotions, which reflect the additive effect of emotions across different events and across both partners. Eighty-three married couples engaged in a series of two conflict conversations. Self-report ratings, observer ratings, and partner ratings were used to assess two types of negative emotion: hard emotion (e.g., angry or annoyed) and soft emotion (e.g., sad or hurt). Couples were reasonably accurate in encoding, decoding, and in distinguishing between types of emotion. Emotion expression was strongly associated with general levels of contextual-couple emotion summed across two conversations, whereas emotion perception was more closely tied to specific events. Hard emotion was readily perceived when it was overtly expressed, and soft emotion could sometimes be recognized even when it was not expressed clearly.     

Memory for media: investigation of false memories for negatively and positively charged public events

Despite a large body of false memory research, little has addressed the potential influence of an event's emotional content on susceptibility to false recollections. The Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis predicts that negative emotion generally facilitates memory but also heightens susceptibility to false memories. Participants were asked whether they could recall 20 "widely publicised" public events (half fictitious) ranging in emotional valence, with or without visual cues. Participants recalled a greater number of true negative events (M=3.31/5) than true positive (M=2.61/5) events. Nearly everyone (95%) came to recall at least one false event (M=2.15 false events recalled). Further, more than twice as many participants recalled any false negative (90%) compared to false positive (41.7%) events. Negative events, in general, were associated with more detailed memories and false negative event memories were more detailed than false positive event memories. Higher dissociation scores were associated with false recollections of negative events, specifically.     

Brief reminiscence activities improve state well-being and self-concept in young adults: a randomised controlled experiment

Reminiscence-based psychotherapies have been demonstrated to have robust effects on a range of therapeutic outcomes. However, little research has been conducted on the immediate effects of guided activities they are composed of, or how these might differ dependent on the type of reminiscence. The current study utilised a controlled experimental design, whereby 321 young adults (mean age?=?25.5 years, SD?=?3.0) were randomised to one of four conditions of online reminiscence activity: problem-solving (successful coping experiences), identity (self-defining events contributing to a meaningful and continuous personal identity), bitterness revival (negative or adverse events), or a control condition (any memory from their past). Participants recalled autobiographical memories congruent with the condition, and answered questions to facilitate reflection on the memories. The results indicated that problem-solving and identity reminiscence activities caused significant improvements in self-esteem, meaning in life, self-efficacy and affect, whereas no effects were found in the bitterness revival and control conditions. Problem-solving reminiscence also caused a small effect in increasing perceptions of a life narrative/s. Differences between the conditions did not appear to be explained by the positive-valence of memories. These results provide evidence for the specific effects of adaptive types of problem-solving and identity reminiscence in young adults.     

Cultural affordances and emotional experience: socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States

The authors hypothesized that whereas Japanese culture encourages socially engaging emotions (e.g., friendly feelings and guilt), North American culture fosters socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride and anger). In two cross-cultural studies, the authors measured engaging and disengaging emotions repeatedly over different social situations and found support for this hypothesis. As predicted, Japanese showed a pervasive tendency to reportedly experience engaging emotions more strongly than they experienced disengaging emotions, but Americans showed a reversed tendency. Moreover, as also predicted, Japanese subjective well-being (i.e., the experience of general positive feelings) was more closely associated with the experience of engaging positive emotions than with that of disengaging emotions. Americans tended to show the reversed pattern. The established cultural differences in the patterns of emotion suggest the consistent and systematic cultural shaping of emotion over time.     

The ambiguity of loss affects some,but not all autobiographical memories: redemption and contamination,agency and communion

ABSTRACT

Compared with clear-cut loss by death, ambiguous loss is defined as a loss that is not definite because the person is missing or mentally absent but physically present (e.g., through Alzheimer's disease). We expected the ambiguity of loss to show in psychologically more compromised loss memories and self-defining memories, but not in autobiographical memories in general. Thirty Chinese adults who had lost a parent through death, thirty whose parent had gone missing, and thirty who cared for a demented parent narrated their loss experiences and memories of sad and turning-point events as well as self-defining memories. Individuals with ambiguous loss narrated the loss and a self-defining memory with more contamination and fewer redemption sequences, and only the loss memory with fewer themes of agency and communion than individuals with definite loss, but not in memories of sad and turning point events. Effects of ambiguity of loss were independent of prolonged grief, which in turn independently predicted some of these effects. Thus the ambiguous quality of loss predicts effects on loss memories and self-defining memories independently of psychiatric symptoms.     

Emotion Beliefs,Emotion Regulation,and Emotional Experiences in Daily Life

One potential factor that could influence how individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression cope with upsetting events in their daily lives is the beliefs that these individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed. The current study adopted an experience sampling approach to examine how the beliefs about emotion’s malleability related to daily positive and negative affect and daily emotion regulation efforts among individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression (N = 84). Results demonstrated that individuals having at least moderate symptoms of depression who held more malleable beliefs about emotions reported decreased negative affect both overall during the day and specifically in response to daily upsetting events. Additionally, these individuals who held more malleable beliefs about their emotions also reported more daily use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions in response to upsetting daily events. Results from the current study extend previous work examining the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs, emotional experiences, and emotion regulation to examine these relationships in people who are moderately depressed as they navigate the emotional landscape of their daily lives.