Fading affect bias in Mexico: Differential fading of emotional intensity in death memories and everyday negative memories

Bond, Gary D.; Speller, Lassiter F.; Jiménez, Jaqueline Coeto; Smith, Danielle; Marin, Perla G.; Greenham, Melanie B.; Holman, Rebecka D.; Varela, Edward

doi:10.1002/acp.3987

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 62 publications

(97 reference statements)

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“…The phenomenon has been demonstrated via multiple methodologies using experimental (Landau & Gunter, 2009), daily diary (Ritchie & Skowronski, 2008;Ritchie et al, 2009) or cross-sectional retrospective designs (Gibbons & Lee, 2019). Fading affect bias is also present in both child and adult populations (Gibbons & Rollins, 2021;Rollins et al, 2018), and across multiple national samples from both individualistic and collectivist countries (Bond et al, 2016(Bond et al, , 2022Ritchie et al, 2015). Finally, fading affect bias is also found when using cued recall to specific memories (Schrauf & Hoffman, 2007), and across different affective perceptions of the same flashbulb memories (Bohn & Berntsen, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Be Here Now: Dispositional Mindfulness Enhances Fading Affect Bias

Crawford,

Marsh,

Clegg

2023

Mindfulness

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Objectives The current study examined the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and fading affect bias, where the affect associated with negative events fades more quickly and fully than affect associated with positive events. Although much of the previous work has focused on conditions that hinder fading affect bias (e.g., depression, anxiety), few studies have examined individual difference variables that could enhance the asymmetric fading of positive and negative affect associated with autobiographical events. Methods Participants (n = 241) recalled and described positive and negative life events and rated the initial and current emotional intensity of those events. Events were also rated on importance, memorability, and how often they had been thought about. Participants also completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) to assess dispositional mindfulness. Results Fading affect bias emerged in the study and the strength of the effect was predicted by dispositional mindfulness. The relationship was driven by the observing and describing subscales of the FFMQ. The data fit a model where increased thinking about positive events, but not negative events, mediated the relationship between the observing subscale and fading affect bias. Conclusions The findings suggest that an ability to be centred in the present moment—as measured by dispositional mindfulness—enhances one’s capacity to move on from past events. Specifically, the ability to both observe and describe internal states and the external world enhances the beneficial asymmetric fade of affect associated with negative and positive life events. Preregistration This study is not preregistered.

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confidence: 99%

Be Here Now: Dispositional Mindfulness Enhances Fading Affect Bias

Crawford,

Marsh,

Clegg

2023

Mindfulness

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“…The phenomenon has been demonstrated in children as well as adults (Rollins et al, 2018), occurs for dreams (T. D. Ritchie & Skowronski, 2008), personal event memories (e.g., Walker et al, 1997), interpersonal (Crawford, Hammond, & Marsh, 2023;Zengel et al, 2019) and intergroup interactions (Birtel et al, 2021), and for experiences of services and brands (Kim & Jang, 2014;Raghubir & Latimer, 2013). FAB is considered a "pan-cultural" phenomenon found in both collectivist and individualist cultures (Bond et al, 2016(Bond et al, , 2022; T. D. Ritchie et al, 2015).…”

Section: Fabmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The differential fading serves to remove affect (especially negative affect), to maintain a positive view of life (Colombo et al, 2020;Sedikides & Skowronski, 2020;Skowronski et al, 2014;. The strength of the FAB has been shown to be attenuated by various psychopathologies, including depression (Gibbons & Lee, 2019;Marsh et al, 2019), posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (Bond et al, 2022), dysphoria (Walker et al, 2003), anxiety (Gibbons & Lee, 2019;Walker et al, 2014), stress (Gibbons & Lee, 2019), and eating disorder symptomology (T. D. Ritchie et al, 2019). Although attenuations of FAB are more commonly explored in the literature, there is also research suggesting the phenomenon can be heightened.…”

Section: Fabmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age is positively associated with fading affect bias: A cross-sectional comparison.

Marsh,

Crawford

2024

Psychology and Aging

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Emotions elicited by personal event memories change over time such that negative affect fades more quickly than positive affect. This asymmetric fade is called the fading affect bias (FAB) and has been posited as a mechanism that helps promote a positive outlook on life. A similar bias toward positive information (i.e., the positivity effect) driven by greater emphasis on emotion regulation has been demonstrated in older adults. The current research uses two age-diverse community samples to examine the relationship between age and the strength of FAB. Participants recalled positive and negative event memories and rated the intensity of affect at the time of the event (i.e., retrospectively) and at the time of recollection. Participants of all ages exhibited a significant FAB, and crucially, the strength of the effect was positively associated with age. Age-based differences in psychological well-being and recalled event intensity had no influence on the relationship between age and FAB. The relationship was, however, related to greater personal importance placed on positive (but not negative) events. The findings are consistent with the socioemotional selectivity theory and suggest another mechanism through which emotion regulation is associated with aging to maintain a positive outlook on life. Public Significance StatementPrevious work has demonstrated that negative feelings from unpleasant life events lose their intensity both more quickly and more thoroughly than positive feelings from pleasant life events. This asymmetric fading of positive and negative emotions has been shown to be related to greater emotional well-being. The current research shows that the strength of this difference is positively associated with age and suggests an emotion regulation process that works especially well to maintain a positive outlook as we age.

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“…In contrast to the healthy variables, unhealthy variables are negatively related to the FAB and some of those variables include sexual depression (Gibbons, Dunlap, et al, 2021), dispositional mood (Ritchie et al, 2009), as well as depression, anxiety, and stress (Gibbons et al, 2017; Gibbons & Lee, 2019; Walker et al, 2014). Other unhealthy variables involved immature death attitudes (Gibbons et al, 2018), elevated social media watching (Gibbons et al, 2017), PTSD symptoms in Mexican participants recalling death events (Bond et al, 2022), eating disorder symptoms (Ritchie et al, 2019), as well as parental risk for physical abuse (Skowronski et al, 2016), particularly if parents were recalling childhood events (Crouch et al, 2022). Research uncovered additional unhealthy variables, which included marijuana consumption (Pillersdorf & Scoboria, 2019), and the recall of false autobiographical memories for events from a 1‐week diary study (Gibbons, Dunlap, et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coronaphobia flips the emotional world upside down: Unhealthy variables positively predict the fading affect bias at high physical symptoms of coronavirus anxiety

Gibbons,

Harris,

Friedmann

et al. 2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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The fading affect bias (FAB) refers to the faster fading of unpleasant affect than pleasant affect. The present study investigated various healthy and unhealthy variables as predictors of the FAB across physical symptoms of coronavirus anxiety (PSCA) as well as across events involving and not involving COVID‐19. The data were collected in the heart of the pandemic from April 18, 2020 to January 23, 2021. As expected, social distancing, grit, positive positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS), and rehearsals positively predicted the FAB, whereas negative PANAS, depression, generalized anxiety, and stress negatively predicted the FAB. These results supported the mobilization‐minimization hypothesis, self‐enhancement theories, and the broaden and build theory. Interestingly, PSCA moderated the relations of several variables, such that grit, hypochondria, neuroticism, average daily hours thinking and talking about COVID‐19, negative PANAS, and anxiety predicted the FAB in the expected ways at low PSCA, but all the variables, except negative PANAS and anxiety, positively predicted the FAB at high PSCA. The negative relations between FAB and both negative PANAS and anxiety diminished from low to medium PSCA, and those negative relations remained small at high PSCA. Rehearsal ratings did not mediate the 3‐way interactions. These results emphasize the dramatic effect on emotion regulation, as measured by the FAB, produced by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

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Fading affect bias in Mexico: Differential fading of emotional intensity in death memories and everyday negative memories

Cited by 3 publications

References 62 publications

Be Here Now: Dispositional Mindfulness Enhances Fading Affect Bias

Be Here Now: Dispositional Mindfulness Enhances Fading Affect Bias

Age is positively associated with fading affect bias: A cross-sectional comparison.

Coronaphobia flips the emotional world upside down: Unhealthy variables positively predict the fading affect bias at high physical symptoms of coronavirus anxiety

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