Romantic relationships and fading of affect for memories of the shared past

Abstract

The tendency for the affect associated with positive autobiographical events to fade less over time than the affect associated with negative autobiographical events (the fading affect bias, FAB) has been observed in a variety of contexts, but numerous mediators have been reported. This current study searches for the FAB, and for potential moderators of the FAB, in the context of romantic relationship memories.Both nonsexual types of memories and sexual types of memories showed the FAB.Moreover, the FAB emerged for memories of current relationships, but not for memories of past failed relationships. The FAB also emerged for securely attached individuals, but not for individuals exhibiting other attachment styles. In addition, the FAB was moderated by relationship quality, (for failed relationships) need to belong, sexual esteem, and sexual depression. Implications of these findings both for memory and for relationships are discussed.

The fading affect bias (FAB) is strongest for Jews and Buddhists and weakest for participants without religious affiliations: An exploratory analysis

“…The literature generally supports the notion that the FAB is a healthy coping mechanism because it has been positively related to healthy outcomes, such as social rehearsals [20], positive religious coping [4], death acceptance [21], selfesteem [3], and grit/resilience [22]. Conversely, the FAB has been disrupted by unhealthy outcomes, such as dysphoria [5], dispositional mood [23], trait anxiety [6], and narcissism [24].…”

“…Much like the research showing the FAB persisting across cultures [7], the literature has shown consistent FAB effects across event types. The FAB has been displayed across both control events and events involving alcohol [25], dreams [30], religion [4], significant events that involved deaths [22], social media [3], and videogames [9]. Although these studies generally showed FAB effects across target events (e.g., religious) and control events (e.g., non-religious), the FAB was low for certain target events, including social media events [3], videogame events [9], and religious events that did not involve spirituality [4].…”

A Fading Affect Bias First: Specific Healthy Coping with Partner-Esteem for Romantic Relationship and Non-Relationship Events

“…Whereas the beginnings of a new romantic relationship can be so joyous that they produce feelings of euphoria [ 1 ], breaks ups can produce such strong unpleasant emotions that they parallel, and even rival, feelings produced by the death of a loved one [ 2 ]. Regardless of individuals’ past romantic relationship outcomes, people spend a great deal of time, energy, and effort moving past their previous relationships, maintaining their current ones, and seeking new relationships, as these interactions are demanding and emotionally intense [ 3 ], especially in the case of betrayals (Finkel et al, 2002 [ 4 ]; Luchies et al, 2013 [ 5 ]). Based on autobiographical memory research showing that unpleasant affect fades faster than pleasant affect [ 6 , 7 ], which is referred to as the Fading Affect Bias FAB: [ 8 ], romantic relationship events should show strong FAB effects.…”

“…Based on autobiographical memory research showing that unpleasant affect fades faster than pleasant affect [ 6 , 7 ], which is referred to as the Fading Affect Bias FAB: [ 8 ], romantic relationship events should show strong FAB effects. In fact, Zengel and his colleagues [ 3 ] examined and found the FAB across sexual and non-sexual relationship events, which showed general healthy coping. However, the researchers may not have shown specific healthy coping, in the form of significant but different FAB effects across events, because they did not examine non-relationship control events.…”

“…Whereas research has not yet shown that the FAB is a healthy coping outcome at the specific level of analysis, we remained hopeful that we could provide such evidence in the context of romantic relationships. In fact, we hoped that Zengel and colleagues [ 3 ] would provide evidence of specific healthy coping when they examined the relation of the FAB to various moderators across sexual and non-sexual relationship events. Although the researchers found general healthy coping in the form of significant FAB effects for both events as well as various moderator effects for the FAB that also showed general healthy coping, the researchers did not show specific healthy coping.…”