The Moderating Role of Emotion Regulation in the Recall of Negative Autobiographical Memories

Desirée Colombo, Silvia Serino, Carlos Suso-Ribera, Javier Fernández-Álvarez, Pietro Cipresso, Azucena García-Palacios, Giuseppe Riva and Cristina Botella
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Desirée Colombo: Department of Basic Psychology, Clinic and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castellón, Spain
Silvia Serino: Humane Technology Lab, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
Carlos Suso-Ribera: Department of Basic Psychology, Clinic and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castellón, Spain
Javier Fernández-Álvarez: Humane Technology Lab, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
Pietro Cipresso: Department of Psychology, Università di Torino, 10124 Torino, Italy
Azucena García-Palacios: Department of Basic Psychology, Clinic and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castellón, Spain
Giuseppe Riva: Humane Technology Lab, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
Cristina Botella: Department of Basic Psychology, Clinic and Psychobiology, Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castellón, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-18

Abstract: When facing a negative event, people implement different strategies to regulate ongoing emotions. Although the previous literature has suggested that the emotional intensity of a negative episode is associated with the characteristics of the subsequent autobiographical memory, it is still unknown whether emotion regulation (ER) moderates this relationship. In the present study, we provided undergraduate students with a smartphone-based diary to report a negative episode immediately after its occurrence and rate the momentary use of two ER strategies: cognitive reappraisal and rumination. To explore autobiographical memory, two “surprise” recall tasks were performed one week and one month after the event. According to the results, cognitive reappraisal was linked with better memory performances, and a tendency to retrospectively underestimate the negativity of highly intense events was observed only in participants adopting high rates of this strategy. Conversely, intense rumination was found to be associated with less detailed memories of emotionally intense events, as well as with higher emotional involvement with negative episodes over time, regardless of their intensity. Together, our results support the maladaptive role of rumination and the adaptive influence of cognitive reappraisal on autobiographical memory.

Keywords: emotion regulation; rumination; cognitive reappraisal; ecological momentary assessment; autobiographical memory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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