Feeling good and bad about the past and future self

Prior research has shown that memories of feeling good about the self often focus on achievement themes, whereas memories of feeling bad about the self often focus on interpersonal themes. This study examined whether a similar relationship would be evident for imagined future events. Young adults in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory (Hove) 2013-02, Vol.21 (2), p.210-218
Main Authors: Pillemer, David B., Thomsen, Dorthe, Kuwabara, Kie J., Ivcevic, Zorana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Autobiographical memory
Biological and medical sciences
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Cultural differences
Denmark
Emotions
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Future thought
Human
Humans
Imagination
Learning. Memory
Male
Memory
Memory, Episodic
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Recombination
Self
Self Concept
Self esteem
United States
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Summary:Prior research has shown that memories of feeling good about the self often focus on achievement themes, whereas memories of feeling bad about the self often focus on interpersonal themes. This study examined whether a similar relationship would be evident for imagined future events. Young adults in the United States and Denmark provided memories and imagined future events that are associated with positive or negative self-regard. Across cultures, achievement themes were prominently represented in memories of positive self-regard and interpersonal themes were prominently represented in memories of negative self-regard. In contrast, relationships between the emotional valence and thematic content of imagined future events were weak and inconsistent. Our results raise new questions for the theory that imagined future episodes are constructed primarily from recombinations of past episodes.
ISSN:0965-8211
1464-0686
DOI:10.1080/09658211.2012.720263