Reacting to the Past: A Developmental Examination of the Emotion Regulation Role of Autobiographical Memory Specificity

Abstract

This study was designed to experimentally test the impact of the specificity of one's autobiographical memories on affect, and to examine how memory specificity may differentially impact emotional responses across development. In the literature on memory specificity, the Affect Regulation hypothesis (Williams, 1996; Williams et al., 2007) argues that recalling autobiographical memories in an overgeneral manner serves to decrease emotional distress through avoidance of the painful specific details of one's past. While there is evidence for connections between naturally-occurring variations in memory specificity and emotion-regulation in adults, the relationship between memory recall style and distress has not been directly tested in an experimental manner, and no studies have examined such processes in child samples. In this study, 93 children, adolescents, and young adults (8 - 28 years) were randomly assigned to recall negative memories in the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) in either a general or a specific manner. To control for the differential retrieval effort involved in the two remembering conditions, the memories were generated and audio-recorded during Session 1 and played back for the participants one to two weeks later, during Session 2. Pre- and post-tests of emotional states at this second session were used to evaluate the impact of memory recall condition on participants' affect. Analyses indicated that general recall was related to improved emotional state relative to specific recall. Further, individual differences in executive function and emotion regulation abilities contributed to these associations; for instance, individuals who were high in suppressive tendencies were more negatively impacted by the specific condition than those who were lower in suppression. Implications for models of autobiographical memory and emotion regulation, as well as interventions aimed at hoping children and young adults cope with negative experiences, are discussed.