The memories that people would save or erase differ from their most positive and negative memories on function, emotion and correspondence with the life script

ABSTRACT

Autobiographical remembering is a dynamic process in which narrators construct their life story from single memories. What is included in or deleted from the life story depends on many factors. Here, we examined the functions, emotions and correspondence with the life script for the memories that people desire to save or erase from their past. We asked people to generate either the two memories they were most likely to save and erase or the two memories they regarded as their most positive and negative memories. Then everyone rated those memories on function, emotion and correspondence with the life script. Overall, we found save and erase memories corresponded less with the life script relative to most positive and most negative memories though they were similarly emotionally intense. Additionally, erase memories were more associated with shame and less with social functions than most negative memories, whereas most negative memories to a higher degree involved the death of significant others, albeit being similarly traumatic. These findings have important implications for theory about autobiographical memory, and possible clinical relevance.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• function
• emotion
• shame
• trauma
• life script

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Aarhus University’s Research Foundation Grant Number 21791 and the Danish National Research Foundation (Grant Number DNRF89). We thank Maëlle Lerebourg for assistance with memory coding.