A pancultural perspective on the fading affect bias in autobiographical memory

Abstract

The Fading Affect Bias (FAB) refers to the negative affect associated with autobiographical events fading faster than the positive affect associated with such events, a reliable and valid valence effect established by researchers in the U.S.A. The present study examined the idea that the FAB is a ubiquitous emotion regulating phenomenon in autobiographical memory that is present in people from a variety of cultures. We tested for evidence of the FAB by sampling more than 2,400 autobiographical event descriptions from 562 participants in 10 cultures around the world. Using variations on a common method, each sample evidenced a FAB: Positive affect faded slower than negative affect did. Results suggest that in tandem with local norms and customs, the FAB may foster recovery from negative life events and promote the retention of the positive emotions, within and outside of the U.S.A. We discuss these findings in the context of Keltner and Haidt's (1999) levels of analysis theory of emotion and culture. Memory, epub ahead of print published online:14th February 2014, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09658211.2014 3 This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in A Pancultural Perspective on the Fading Affect Bias in Autobiographical MemoryThe human experience is replete with personal, emotional events. The emotions associated with life events can be positive or negative, fleeting or long lasting, disruptive or soothing. Emotions are constructed, in part, by biological and social mechanisms that moderate the affective experience and its expression. Much of the research on emotions has focused on immediate consequences for thought and behavior (Barrett, Niedenthal, & Winkielman, 2005;Damasio, 2003;Forgas, 2000). However, a growing body of research has begun to examine the fate of personal events' emotions over time ). This research suggests that many emotions evidence an overall pattern of affective fading. For many events, their associated emotions become less intense with the passage of time, some gradually, others abruptly (Gibbons, Lee, & Walker, 2011;Ritchie & Batteson, 2013). Importantly, this tendency for affective fading is biased such that negative emotions, on average, fade significantly faster than do positive emotions. This pattern of affect change is the Fading Affect Bias (FAB).The evidence for such a differential fading of positive and negative affect is robust and shows demonstratively that many adults evidence a FAB. Nonetheless, the majority of the early research on the FAB involved North American samples of university students, particularly those from the United States (Walker, Vogl, & Thompson, 1997). There remains the possibility that the FAB represents a cultural phenomenon, such that it may only be present in the relatively homogeneous samples thus far examined, within the U.S. To our knowledge, no prior work has provided data that enable us to compare the FAB cross-culturally' thus, the possibility of a culture-specific effect remains open. F...

The Fading Affect Bias shows healthy coping at the general level, but not the specific level for religious variables across religious and non-religious events

“…In addition, the FAB was positively related to spirituality, which is positively related to positive mental health outcomes (Cohen, 2002;Ellison & Fan, 2007;Kim et al, 2004;Underwood & Teresi, 2002). Together, these results extend the literature on the FAB to the context of religion, and they support the claim that the FAB is a healthy coping mechanism at a general level (Ritchie et al, 2014a;.…”

“…Whereas the literature supports the FAB as a healthy coping mechanism at a general level, two studies examining individual differences and related events have found that the FAB predicts outcomes that can either enhance healthy or unhealthy outcomes. As religious studies have shown that religious variables are related to positive outcomes, and Ritchie et al (2014a) encouraged researchers to examine additional moderators and mediators of the FAB, we wanted to give the FAB a favorable chance to be a healthy coping mechanism at both the general and specific levels of analysis by testing it in the context of religion.…”

Event centrality of positive and negative autobiographical memories to identity and life story across cultures

“…Although Ritchie et al (2014) found a fading effect bias in samples from six countries, these were mostly Western. Furthermore, the functions of autobiographical memory differ according to the valence of the memory: negative memories often have a directive function, whereas positive memories are more likely to cover self-and social functions (Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009).…”

Narrative perspective shift at retrieval: The psychological-distance-mediated-effect on emotional intensity of positive and negative autobiographical memory

“…Less clear and vivid images, which indicate more distant objects, also evoke weaker emotion (De Cesarei & Codispoti, 2008). Moreover, emotion associated with an autobiographical memory becomes less intense with general passage of time (e.g., prolonged temporal distance and increased memory age) in a biased tendency such that negative emotion fades faster than positive emotion does (i.e., fading affect bias, e.g., Ritchie et al, 2015). The principle of how emotional intensity changes according to objective distance (e.g., physical or temporal distance) can be applied to self-rated psychological distance.…”