Is the negative always that bad? Or how emotion regulation and integration of negative memories can positively affect well-being.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether coherent integration of negative memories into the self could positively predict well-being over time, and whether certain emotion regulation strategies could facilitate this coherent integration. In turn, coherent integration of negative memories was expected to further facilitate adaptive emotion regulation strategies over time. METHOD: A total of 303 participants took part in this longitudinal study. At Phase 1, they completed measures of emotion regulation and well-being. Three months later, they described the memory of the most negative event they experienced since Phase 1, and completed measures assessing its integration. One month later, participants completed the well-being measures again, and another month later, their emotion regulation was reassessed. RESULTS: Adaptive emotion regulation predicted adaptive memory integration, which in turn led to increases in well-being and adaptive emotion regulation. Contrariwise, the incapacity to adaptively regulate emotions predicted poor memory integration, which in turn led to decreases in well-being. CONCLUSION: The way people regulate their negative emotions acts as an individual difference influencing how negative memories are integrated into the self, which can in return alter well-being and emotion regulation capacity over time.

Cognitive integration of personal or public events affects mental health: Examining memory networks in a case of natural flooding disaster.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to examine whether memories of personal or public events could affect mental health through the way those memories are integrated in memory networks. METHOD: Participants from the general population (N = 224, age mean = 36.62 years, 74% female) were either directly or indirectly personally affected by a natural flooding disaster with moderate consequences or had simply learned about it. A prospective design (during the floods and two months later) was used to examine the impact that such a personal or public event memory could have on their mental health. RESULTS: Results showed that flood-affected individuals reported poorer mental health compared to the unaffected. However, both affected and unaffected individuals who had encoded a current floods-related event in memory as need satisfying or who had embedded such an event in need satisfying memory networks showed better mental health over time. These results held after controlling for the effect of various demographics and dispositional emotion regulation styles. CONCLUSION: Simply learning about public events can impact mental health through the way those events are integrated in memory, which appears as a critical individual difference.

Networks of self-defining memories as a contributing factor to emotional openness.

Emotional openness is characterised by a capacity to tolerate threatening self-relevant material and an interest towards new emotional situations. We investigated how specific networks of memories could be an important contributing factor to emotional openness. At Phase 1, participants completed measures of personality traits and emotional intelligence, described a self-defining memory, provided other memories associated with it, and rated the valence of each of their memories. A score assessing the complexity of this memory network, comprising the number of memories reported and their valence diversity, was created. Two weeks later, in laboratory, participants watched an anxiety-inducing film and took part in an interview assessing their emotional openness to the film. They completed a cognitive task before and after the film to measure ego depletion. Controlling for traits and emotional intelligence, memory network complexity was positively associated with emotional openness and negatively with ego depletion. The mental organisation of self-defining memories thus appears to be a critical factor contributing to emotional openness.

The Incremental Validity of Narrative Identity in Predicting Well-Being: A Review of the Field and Recommendations for the Future.

Grounded in four theoretical positions-structural, cognitive, phenomenological, and ethical-the present review demonstrates the empirical evidence for the incremental validity of narrative identity as a cross-sectional indicator and prospective predictor of well-being, compared with other individual difference and situational variables. In doing so, we develop an organizational framework of four categories of narrative variables: (a) motivational themes, (b) affective themes, (c) themes of integrative meaning, and (d) structural elements. Using this framework, we detail empirical evidence supporting the incremental association between narrative identity and well-being, a case that is strongest for motivational, affective, and integrative meaning themes. These categories of themes serve as vital complimentary correlates and predictors of well-being, alongside commonly assessed variables such as dispositional personality traits. We then use the theoretically grounded review of the empirical literature to develop concrete areas of future research for the field.

The chicken or the egg? Systematic investigation of the effect of order of administration of Memory Questionnaires and Well-being Scales.

Narrative research claims that episodic/autobiographical memory characteristics and themes represent stable individual differences that relate to well-being. However, the effects of the order of administration of memory descriptions and well-being scales have never been investigated. Of importance, social cognitive research has shown that trivial contextual factors, such as completing a self-report measure, can influence the type of memories recollected afterwards and that memory recollection can transiently affect subsequent self-report ratings--both of which underscore that transient contextual effects, rather than stable individual differences in memory could be responsible for the correlation between memory characteristics and well-being. The present study examined if the order in which (positive or negative) memory and well-being scales are completed affects the characteristics and themes of the memory described, the scores of well-being reported and the relationship between the two. The results revealed some effects of order of administration when memories were described before completing well-being scales, but only on a situational measure of well-being, not on a trait measure. In sum, we recommend assessing memory-related material at the end of questionnaires to avoid potential mood-priming effects.