Why people rehearse their memories: Frequency of use and relations to the intensity of emotions associated with autobiographical memories

Abstract

People may choose to rehearse their autobiographical memories in silence or to disclose their memories with other people. This paper focuses on five types of memory rehearsal: involuntary rehearsal, rehearsal to maintain an event memory, rehearsal to re-experience the emotion of an event, rehearsal to understand an event, or rehearsal for social communication. A total of 337 participants recalled event memories, provided estimates of how often each event was rehearsed and for what reason, and rated the affective characteristics of the events. Rehearsal frequency was highest for social communication and lowest for rehearsals aimed at understanding events. For many rehearsal types, rehearsal was more frequent for positive than negative events. Frequently rehearsed events tended to show less affective fading. The pattern changed when events were socially rehearsed. For positive events, increased social rehearsal was related to a reduction in affective fading. For negative events, increased social rehearsal was associated with increased affective fading.

Two versions of life: Emotionally negative and positive life events have different roles in the organization of life story and identity.

“…Walker et al, (2009) found that positive events tend to be more rehearsed than negative events, across different types of rehearsal. They also found rehearsal to be generally negatively related to the fading of emotional intensity.…”

Imagery in the aftermath of viewing a traumatic film: Using cognitive tasks to modulate the development of involuntary memory

“…Involuntary memories are typically sensory-perceptual rather than verbal (Arntz, de Groot, & Kindt, 2005; Brewer, 1996; Conway, 1990, 2005; Conway, Meares, & Standart, 2004; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), relate to specific events rather than summaries across several events (Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008) and are more frequently negative than positive (Bywaters, Andrade, & Turpin, 2004; Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Ritchie, 2009). However, laboratory research in experimental psychology has predominately focussed on memories associated with deliberate, intentional recollection.…”

Changing the working self alters the emotions prompted by recall

“…As Cason (1932) observed, at event recall, the intensity of positive affect (PA) prompted by recalling positive life events typically exceeds the intensity of negative affect (NA) prompted by recalling negative life events. This outcome, in part, reflects the fading affect bias (FAB; Gibbons, Lee, & Walker, 2011;Landau & Gunter, 2009;Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Ritchie, 2009;Walker, Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003;Walker, Vogl, & Thompson, 1997): NA generally fades faster from event occurrence to event recall than PA.…”