Memory and emotion
I am interested in what influences people’s recall of their past emotions. Understanding memory for emotions is important because our conceptions of our lives, especially meaningful (and therefore usually emotional) experiences, are based primarily on what we recall. Additionally, most measures of emotion are retrospective measures, so it is important to know whether such measures accurately reflect momentary experiences. In addition to retrospective measures, I use experience sampling methodology which relies less on recall (Scollon, Kim-Prieto, & Diener, 2003; Tov & Scollon, 2011). Respondents in my studies record their emotions on palmtop computers at several random moments each day when signaled. Clear discrepancies have emerged between retrospective reports and momentary or “real-time” reports. Rather than treating inaccuracies in recall as error, however, my research seeks to uncover systematic mechanisms that guide memory for emotions. For example, I found that one’s emotional self-concept predicts memory for emotions, even after controlling for momentary experiences (Scollon, Diener, Oishi, & Biswas-Diener, 2004). In other words, instead of searching their memories and summing up specific instances of emotion to arrive at an estimate of their past emotions, people use heuristic information such as the self-concept to inform their recall. In addition, this effect has been replicated among different cultural groups.
Memory for emotions also determines the choices people make, as my colleagues at Illinois and I have demonstrated. We had participants record their on-line affect several times each day during their Spring Break vacations (Wirtz, Krueger, Scollon, & Diener, 2003). The best predictor of whether students wanted to take a similar vacation in the future was not momentary emotion during the vacation, but rather their memory for emotions. Moreover, expectations about the vacation influenced memories. The same is also true for how students make decisions about which courses to take. The actual experience matters very little, whereas the memory drives decision-making.
These findings challenge our conceptions of happiness. Is happiness the sum of pleasant experiences or pleasant memories? Are people aware of the role of memory for emotions in their overall happiness? My honor’s student Jing Han Sim and I explored whether people effectively forecast their emotional memories and actively try to create positive memories even in the absence of positive momentary experiences.
My PhD student Sharon Koh and I explored cultural differences in the way people store or organize their emotion memories (Koh, Scollon, & Wirtz, 2014). We used a reaction-time paradigm developed by Michael Robinson (see Robinson & Kirkeby, 2004) that allowed us to measure the cognitive representation of emotion memories among our respondents. We found that Singaporeans represented their emotion memories around social relationships more so than Americans. However, this cultural difference was fully mediated by emotional consistency. Singaporeans were less emotionally consistent overall than Americans (meaning, they tended to experience different emotions across different situations), and their inconsistency led to organizing their emotions more around social relationships. After all, for someone who consistently experiences the same feelings in different situations with different others, there is not much to gain from organizing one’s emotion memories around social relationships.
I am interested in what influences people’s recall of their past emotions. Understanding memory for emotions is important because our conceptions of our lives, especially meaningful (and therefore usually emotional) experiences, are based primarily on what we recall. Additionally, most measures of emotion are retrospective measures, so it is important to know whether such measures accurately reflect momentary experiences. In addition to retrospective measures, I use experience sampling methodology which relies less on recall (Scollon, Kim-Prieto, & Diener, 2003; Tov & Scollon, 2011). Respondents in my studies record their emotions on palmtop computers at several random moments each day when signaled. Clear discrepancies have emerged between retrospective reports and momentary or “real-time” reports. Rather than treating inaccuracies in recall as error, however, my research seeks to uncover systematic mechanisms that guide memory for emotions. For example, I found that one’s emotional self-concept predicts memory for emotions, even after controlling for momentary experiences (Scollon, Diener, Oishi, & Biswas-Diener, 2004). In other words, instead of searching their memories and summing up specific instances of emotion to arrive at an estimate of their past emotions, people use heuristic information such as the self-concept to inform their recall. In addition, this effect has been replicated among different cultural groups.
Memory for emotions also determines the choices people make, as my colleagues at Illinois and I have demonstrated. We had participants record their on-line affect several times each day during their Spring Break vacations (Wirtz, Krueger, Scollon, & Diener, 2003). The best predictor of whether students wanted to take a similar vacation in the future was not momentary emotion during the vacation, but rather their memory for emotions. Moreover, expectations about the vacation influenced memories. The same is also true for how students make decisions about which courses to take. The actual experience matters very little, whereas the memory drives decision-making.
These findings challenge our conceptions of happiness. Is happiness the sum of pleasant experiences or pleasant memories? Are people aware of the role of memory for emotions in their overall happiness? My honor’s student Jing Han Sim and I explored whether people effectively forecast their emotional memories and actively try to create positive memories even in the absence of positive momentary experiences.
My PhD student Sharon Koh and I explored cultural differences in the way people store or organize their emotion memories (Koh, Scollon, & Wirtz, 2014). We used a reaction-time paradigm developed by Michael Robinson (see Robinson & Kirkeby, 2004) that allowed us to measure the cognitive representation of emotion memories among our respondents. We found that Singaporeans represented their emotion memories around social relationships more so than Americans. However, this cultural difference was fully mediated by emotional consistency. Singaporeans were less emotionally consistent overall than Americans (meaning, they tended to experience different emotions across different situations), and their inconsistency led to organizing their emotions more around social relationships. After all, for someone who consistently experiences the same feelings in different situations with different others, there is not much to gain from organizing one’s emotion memories around social relationships.