Emotional closure in autobiographical memories: phenomenology and involuntary remembering

ABSTRACT

Open autobiographical memories are events without closure. The current study explored the influence of potential closure in the future. We compared the phenomenology and involuntary recall for events that were either closed, open with a possibility of closure, or open without such a possibility. Participants (N = 87) recalled these events in random order and answered phenomenology questions. We expected open events without closure possibility to be highest in negativity, emotional intensity, regret and involuntary recall frequency, followed by potentially open events and closed events. We found that emotional intensity at recall, negativity and involuntary recall frequency were higher for open than closed events. Open events without closure possibility were the highest in regret and evoked more negative affect upon involuntary recall than open events with closure possibility. We discussed our findings in relation to research on autobiographical memory and involuntary remembering, along with intrusion and possible clinical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• closure
• involuntary memory
• spontaneous thinking
• regret

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mervenur Ayyıldız and Mihriban Acaroğlu for their help in content coding of reported events.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.