Over Time, Memories May Grow More Positive

Medline Plus - Reuters Health Info.

When recalling memories of negative or positive events that helped to shape our identity, such as a break-up or marriage, we tend to downplay the fear, anger or other negative emotions experienced at the time and remember more of the positive emotions, a new study indicates. "These findings suggest that healthy individuals work to build a positive narrative identity that will yield an overall optimistic tone to the most important recalled events from their lives," writes study authors Drs. Michael Conway and Wendy Wood, both of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.

The findings may also have implications for an individual's mental health.

"Mental health is maintained or improved by people's attempts to make sense of their life experiences", Conway told Reuters Health.

"Healthy people try to see the positive in even very difficult life experiences, and come to downplay, as much as they can, how negative some events were in the past," he recalled.

In two different studies, the participants were asked to recall self-defining events in their lives and then describe the event in various terms, including the extent to which it had a big impact on them and how much it helped them learn about themselves and about life.

The study results conclude that a person's perception of the impact of an event is a good marker for meaning making, that is the process that results in an individual integrating an event with his or her positive sense of identitiy. In other words... The way you think about an event (focusing on the positive or the negative aspects of it)and the importance you give the event will determine the impact that memory or event plays in your life.

Conway and Wood found that when the study participants reflected on negative events, such as conflict with bosses or teachers, death or physical or sexual assault, they reported that they currently felt less negative emotions, like anger and disgust, and more happiness and pride than they had when the event occured.

Further, when the study participants reflected on positive events, like a dating relationship or marriage, recreation, or attaining a personal goal, they reported feeling just as happy as they had felt at the time of the event, as well as similarly intense feelings of love and pride. Again, however, they also reported feeling less anger, embarrassment, guilt and other negative emotions than they had initially felt, the report indicates.

The striking aspect of the study was that when people attempt to make sense of their past experiences, people would downplay all the negative types of feelings they had and focus mainly on the positive. For example, the sad event like the death of a grandmother - the event remains sad, however, people tend to reflect on the positive feelings associated with the grandmother's suffering being over.

Conway told Reuters Health that "everyone can experience strong emotional reactions in extreme situations, and everyone needs to come to terms with such events in order to maintain a positive sense of self and a positive sense of the world at large."

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