Why people rehearse their memories: frequency of use and relations to the intensity of emotions associated with autobiographical memories.
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.
Walker
W Richard
WR
Department of Social Sciences, Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC 27110, USA. walkerr@wssu.edu
Skowronski
John J
JJ
Gibbons
Jeffrey A
JA
Vogl
Rodney J
RJ
Ritchie
Timothy D
TD
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult