Juan Castillo, Haoxue Fan, Olivia T Karaman, Jocelyn Shu, Yoann Stussi, M Alexandra Kredlow, Sophia Vranos, Javiera P Oyarzún, Hayley M Dorfman, Deshawn Chatman Sambrano, Robert Meksin, William Hirst, Elizabeth A Phelps
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
When recalling autobiographical events, people not only retrieve event details but also the feelings they experienced. The current study examined whether people are able to consistently recall the intensity of past feelings associated with two consequential and negatively valenced events, i.e. the 9/11 attack (N = 769) and the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 726). By comparing experienced and recalled intensities of negative feelings, we discovered that people systematically recall a higher intensity of negative feelings than initially reported - overestimating the intensity of past negative emotional experiences. The COVID-19 dataset also revealed that individuals who experienced greater improvement in emotional well-being displayed smaller biases in recalling their feelings. Across both datasets, the intensity of remembered feelings was correlated with initial feelings and current feelings, but the impact of the current feelings was stronger in the COVID-19 dataset than in the 9/11 dataset. Our results demonstrate that when recalling negative autobiographical events, people tend to overestimate the intensity of prior negative emotional experiences with their degree of bias influenced by current feelings and well-being.
期刊介绍:
Cognition & Emotion is devoted to the study of emotion, especially to those aspects of emotion related to cognitive processes. The journal aims to bring together work on emotion undertaken by researchers in cognitive, social, clinical, and developmental psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive science. Examples of topics appropriate for the journal include the role of cognitive processes in emotion elicitation, regulation, and expression; the impact of emotion on attention, memory, learning, motivation, judgements, and decisions.