RESUMEN
Emotional inhibition in recollection of specific autobiographical memories (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) is investigated in two experiments. Less complete emotional inhibition was hypothesised to correspond to a reduced sense of psychological closure. Emotional inhibition was identified by comparing the effect of emotion words relative to lifetime period words as primes. In Experiment 1, emotion words facilitated recognition judgements of descriptions of remembered experiences rated low in closure. In Experiment 2, emotion words facilitated recognition judgements of descriptions of a laboratory experience made lower in closure. A sense of psychological closure may therefore be a prerequisite for strategic emotional inhibition. Implications for adjustment and goal pursuit are discussed.
Asunto(s)
Emociones , Inhibición Psicológica , Memoria , Procesos Mentales , Análisis de Varianza , Autobiografías como Asunto , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Autoimagen , Factores Sexuales , Factores de TiempoRESUMEN
A theory is proposed that life events are remembered with a satisfying sense of closure when there is decreased emotional detail in the constructed autobiographical memory representation. The first three studies show that, although properties of the experienced event (such as valence and recency) accounted for some variance in participants' sense of closure, the amount of emotional detail in the memory was also a significant predictor. The third study shows that emotion-focused biased retelling of the experience increased emotional detail and decreased the sense of closure participants reported. Related approaches and implications for psychological adjustment are discussed.
Asunto(s)
Emociones , Memoria , Modelos Psicológicos , Adaptación Psicológica , Femenino , Humanos , Relaciones Interpersonales , Masculino , Recuerdo Mental , Pruebas Psicológicas , Análisis de Regresión , Factores Sexuales , Estrés Psicológico/psicología , Factores de TiempoRESUMEN
The present research examined the nature of autobiographical memory event clusters. Specifically we were interested in the interplay between the content and organisation of autobiographical memory with retrieval in determining the similarity of event memories across time. Using an event cueing procedure, clusters of related event memories were generated. Participants sorted these events into meaningful groups after a delay of several weeks. The results suggest that participants' ability to perform this sorting task is dependent on their ability to reinstate the retrieval context. Further our results suggest that event clusters are chains of related event memories as opposed to clusters of interrelated event memories.
