Remembering successes and failures: rehearsal characteristics influence recollection and distancing

ABSTRACT

We investigated the relationship between components of rumination, brooding and reflection, and autobiographical remembering by testing whether voluntary and involuntary rehearsal mediated rumination-related variation in the sensory-affective and metacognitive features of memory experience. We focused on achievement and failure memories as both are goal-related events, yet they represent distinct experiences in terms of valence and functionality. For failure memories, brooding was associated with intense recollection and reduced psychological distance. Brooding was related to enhanced distance of achievements, indicating the disruptive effects of brooding on remembering. Although reflection attenuated the recollective experience for both achievement and failure memories, it brought achievement memories to a subjective closer past. Structural equation modelling demonstrated the mediating role of involuntary remembering on the pattern of remembering experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• rumination
• goal memories
• voluntary rehearsal
• involuntary rehearsal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Autobiographical remembering has been characterised by three constructs (Fitzgerald & Broadbridge, 2013; Öner & Gülgöz, 2016) with event characteristics (event intensity, importance, self-definition, consequentiality), rehearsal characteristics (voluntary and involuntary remembering) and recollection (current intensity, imagery, reliving), however here, we focused only on the latent factor of recollection. Therefore, we not only tested the measurement invariance of the recollection construct but also we conducted multi-group confirmatory factor analysis using the three latent constructs. After we validated the configural structure of the recollection factor with three indicators, we proceeded to test the multi-group invariance of the measurement specifically for this factor. Such an approach is stricter, ensuring that memory items loaded on the intended constructs (i.e. the item about importance did not load on the recollection factor).