Autobiographical memory coherence in emotional disorders: The role of rumination, cognitive avoidance, executive functioning, and meaning making

Abstract

The ability to construct coherent narratives about significant personal experiences, commonly referred to as autobiographical memory coherence, has been related to various emotional disorders, though insight regarding mechanisms that might underlie this relation is scarce. The present study contributes to this growing body of research by examining the relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD and by investigating the role of rumination, cognitive avoidance, executive functioning, and meaning making in that relation in a large-scale community sample. The negative relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD could not be replicated, nor could the hypothesized negative relation between memory coherence and both rumination and cognitive avoidance be confirmed. In contrast, results indicated more memory coherence to be related to more rumination. Additional analyses in light of these surprising findings revealed that there was a significant indirect relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD-related symptoms through rumination. When the latter was controlled for, memory coherence was predictive of PTSD diagnosis and the hypothesized negative association with cognitive avoidance could be confirmed. In line with predictions, both executive functioning and meaning making were positively related to memory coherence. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

How am I going to tell you this? The relations between social anxiety and narrative coherence

“…In the former relation, there was an indirect effect of excessive external focus on social evaluation, working memory load, depressive symptoms and rumination. This is in line with literature suggesting that anxiety can disrupt working memory performance (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), and literature on the relation between the internal focus, rumination and depression (Vanderveren et al, 2020). Furthermore, the presence of both of an excessive external focus on social threat in combination with the increased internal focus on anxious thoughts and feelings are in line with what is described in cognitive models on social anxiety in the literature (Clark & McManus, 2002;Clark & Wells, 1995).…”

“…However, the novel finding here is that the mechanisms that are proposed to play a role in social anxiety, were also related to thematic coherence, which is a crucial constituting component of total narrative coherence. This is in keeping with broader research that evidences negative relations between narrative coherence and psychopathology (Adler et al, 2016;Baerger & McAdams, 1999;Habermas & Reese, 2015;McLean et al, 2010;Reese et al, 2017;Vanaken & Hermans, 2020a;Vanderveren et al, 2019Vanderveren et al, , 2020Waters & Fivush, 2015).…”

“…Furthermore, studies indicate that depression and rumination negatively relate to memory coherence (Buxton, 2016;Mitchell et al, 2020;Vanaken & Hermans, 2020a;Vanderveren et al, 2019), and that rumination can play a mediating role in the association between narrative coherence and psychopathology in younger adolescents (Habermas & Reese, 2015). A recent study of Vanderveren et al (2020) confirms that the relation between memory coherence and depression is at least partially explained by rumination. However, there is no research specifically on the role of depression and rumination in relation to memory coherence in socially anxious individuals.…”

The influence of an induced negative emotional state on autobiographical memory coherence

“…Various features of autobiographical memory have been shown to be compromised in individuals suffering from MDD. For example, recent studies seem to suggest that the ability to narrate autobiographical memories in a coherent manner is impaired in individuals experiencing depressive symptoms [4][5][6]. However, to this date, it remains unclear whether there is a causal relation between depressive symptoms and this cognitive skill referred to as autobiographical memory coherence.…”

“…In contrast, difficulty with constructing coherent narratives has been shown to be related to depressive symptoms [4][5][6]11]. There are some indications that especially the ability to construct coherent narratives about negative personal experiences relates to depression [5,6]. Not only memory valence, but gender as well is suggested to moderate the relation between memory coherence and depression.…”