Networks of self-defining memories as a contributing factor to emotional openness

ABSTRACT

Emotional openness is characterised by a capacity to tolerate threatening self-relevant material and an interest towards new emotional situations. We investigated how specific networks of memories could be an important contributing factor to emotional openness. At Phase 1, participants completed measures of personality traits and emotional intelligence, described a self-defining memory, provided other memories associated with it, and rated the valence of each of their memories. A score assessing the complexity of this memory network, comprising the number of memories reported and their valence diversity, was created. Two weeks later, in laboratory, participants watched an anxiety-inducing film and took part in an interview assessing their emotional openness to the film. They completed a cognitive task before and after the film to measure ego depletion. Controlling for traits and emotional intelligence, memory network complexity was positively associated with emotional openness and negatively with ego depletion. The mental organisation of self-defining memories thus appears to be a critical factor contributing to emotional openness.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-defining memories
• emotional openness
• memory network
• ego depletion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Emotional openness is a concept that differs from trait openness to experience, which typically refers to individuals who are intellectual, imaginative, independent, and open-minded, not necessarily individuals that are open and tolerant towards emotions and self-threatening material (John & Srivastava, 1999).

2. We assessed anxiety because our target participants were students. Anxiety is a frequently and commonly experienced emotion in this population, and a relevant one as well (Bayram & Bilgel, 2008).

3. As can be seen in Table 1, both the number of memories reported in the network and the diversity of valence were positively associated with emotional openness and negatively correlated to ego depletion, which supports the rationale of their aggregation and our algorithm. It should also be noted that averaging the z-scores of both variables or multiplying them leads to very similar results.

4. The same hierarchical regressions were also conducted with only diversity of valence or the number of memories of the network at Step 3. Those two variables were individually positively associated with emotional openness and negatively with ego depletion. However, the combination of those two variables in an index of complexity explained a greater portion of variance. Participants' age and sex were not associated with the dependant variables, and their inclusion did not affect the results significantly. Finally, the number of words used during the interview was also unrelated to emotional openness (β = .07, ns), and all study results remained virtually the same when controlling for this variable.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada 435-2012-1358 awarded to the second author and by a scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to the first author.