Life is pleasant - and memory helps to keep it that way!

被引:460
作者
Walker, WR [1 ]
Skowronski, JJ
Thompson, CP
机构
[1] Winston Salem State Univ, Dept Social Sci, Winston Salem, NC 27110 USA
[2] No Illinois Univ, Dept Psychol, De Kalb, IL 60115 USA
[3] Kansas State Univ, Dept Psychol, Manhattan, KS 66506 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1037/1089-2680.7.2.203
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
People's recollections of the past are often positively biased. This bias has 2 causes. The 1st cause lies in people's perceptions of events. The authors review the results of several studies and present several new comparative analyses of these studies, all of which indicate that people perceive events in their lives to more often be pleasant than unpleasant. A 2nd cause is the fading affect bias: The affect associated with unpleasant events fades faster than the affect associated with pleasant events. The authors review the results of several studies documenting this bias and present evidence indicating that dysphoria (mild depression) disrupts such bias. Taken together, this evidence suggests that autobiographical memory represents an important exception to the theoretical claim that bad is stronger than good.
引用
收藏
页码:203 / 210
页数:8
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