The Effect of Social Disclosure on the Intensity of Affect Provoked by Autobiographical Memories

Abstract

Affect associated with negative autobiographical memories fades faster over time than affect associated with positive autobiographical memories (the fading affect bias). Data described in the present article suggest that this bias is observed when people use their own words to describe both the emotions that they originally felt in response to events in their lives and the emotions that they feel when they recall those events. The data also suggest that the fading affect bias is not a consequence of distortion in memory for the emotions experienced at event occurrence, but instead reflects current affective responses to memories for those events. Moreover, this bias has a social component. Frequently disclosed memories evince a stronger fading affect bias than less frequently disclosed memories. Memories disclosed to many types of people evince a stronger fading affect bias than memories disclosed to few types of people. Finally, the relation between social disclosure and fading affect appears to be causal: the results of an experiment demonstrate that social disclosure decreases the fading of pleasant affect and increases the fading of unpleasant affect associated with autobiographical memories.

Pleasantness bias in flashbulb memories: Positive and negative flashbulb memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall among East and West Germans

“…They found that the memories of traumatic events were more reliable and consistent over time than were the memories of positive events. However, they also found that the overall memory quality and vividness of the positive events declined more over time than did those of the negative memories, which seems contrary to the fading affect bias reported in other studies (e.g., Holmes, 1970;Skowronski et al, 2004;Walker et al, 2003;Walker et al, 1997). Levine and Bluck (2004) asked students who were either happy or unhappy about the O. J. Simpson verdict how clearly they recalled the news event 2 months, as well as 1 year, after the event had occurred.…”

“…Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, and Walker (2004) found the fading affect bias to be related to the rehearsal of an event.…”

Evaluating interviews which search for the truth with suspects: but are investigators’ self-assessments of their own skills truthful ones?

“…Kahneman et al, 1982;Sedikedes et al, 2003;Skowronski et al, 1991Skowronski et al, , 2004Walker et al, 2003), might be another reason for investigators' inaccurately rating themselves, allowing them to obviate exercising the required cognitive effort when self-rating. To lessen such concerns, the researchers advised the investigators to examine the videorecording of the interview which they were to self-assess at least twice before entering their scores.…”

“…One reason might be that individuals, when reflecting, find it more demanding to prompt negative self-inferences than negative other-inferences since they invariably possess more positive knowledge about themselves than about others (Kihlström, Beer, & Klein, 2003;Prentice, 1990). Moreover, these positive recollections decay at a slower rate than their less favourable counterparts (Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Walker, 2004;Walker et al, 2003). As such, positive information is elevated (or reconstructed as positive) in one's hierarchy of memory, and self-threatening feedback is derogated (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003;Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003), leaving heuristically driven information to result in biased judgments (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982).…”

Self-enhancement and self-protection: What they are and what they do

“…Of course, this immediately raises the question to a self-enhancement adherent as to why positively-biased memories are so readily available; indeed, as diary studies have demonstrated, people remember positive life events better than negative life events (Skowronski, Betz, Thompson, & Shannon, 1991;Walker, Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003), and, relatedly, affect associated with positive life events dissipates at a slower rate than affect associated with negative life events (Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Walker, 2004;Walker et al, 2003) . It seems plausible to assume that the desire to view oneself favourably could result in positive information receiving a privileged place in memory.…”