Some Characteristics of Positive and Negative (“Most Traumatic”) Event Memories in a College Sample

Abstract

Discrepant findings from cognitive science and clinical research underpin the debate regarding the nature of traumatic memory and raise issues regarding the generalizability of conclusions from non-clinical samples to traumatized clinical populations. In the present study, we replicated and extended a cognitive study by Christianson and Loftus (1990) by comparing characteristics of positive and negative (“most traumatic”) childhood event memories in a college sample and rating the negative memory reports against a clinically-defined standard for traumatic events. Results indicated that negative and positive memories were similar in their ease of recall, vividness, amount of central and peripheral details, degree of past emotion, and amount of discussion of the event. However, negative memories were associated with significantly less present emotion than positive memories and more instances of a highly memorable detail. Expert judges determined that only 8% (4/48) of the negative memory events met the traumatic event exposure criterion for PTSD, and none of these events was associated with self-reported symptomatology sufficient to indicate a likely current PTSD diagnosis. Four other negative events were associated with elevated symptomatology. These results suggest that many of the claims regarding the characteristics of what have been called “traumatic” memories may instead describe emotional memories in general. Further, life events that nonclinical samples identify as “most traumatic” may not correspond to clinically-defined traumatic events. Consequently, caution should be exercised in generalizing negative memory findings from nonclinical samples -even if described as “traumatic” -to describe or explain memories in clinical populations with severe event exposure or posttraumatic symptomatology.

Key Words:

• Traumatic memories
• negative memories
• positive memories
• traumatic event exposure
• external validity
• PTSD