Finally, cognitive psychologists have found that your emotional feelings
and mood can affect what you remember. Not only is there the
same kind of matching effect that there is for context, so you will
remember more if you are in a similar emotional state when you try
to retrieve a memory, but you will remember more if you feel the
memory is a pleasant one.16 Here are three major findings about
memory, emotions, and mood.
• You will recall pleasant information more accurately and more quickly,
which is sometimes called the ‘‘Pollyanna Principle.’’ Whether
you are trying to remember what you have perceived, what
someone has said, a decision you have made, or other types of
information, if it’s more pleasant to remember, you will remember
better. While psychologists have tested this principle
in the laboratory, such as by asking subjects to remember
words that are pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant, or asking them
to remember colors, fruits, vegetables, or other items that are
more or less pleasant,17 the principle makes sense in everyday
life. For example, wouldn’t you rather recall something you
enjoy that gives you good feelings than something you don’t
like and makes you feel bad? In fact, there is a whole body
of research that indicates that people will repress or suppress
memories of experiences that are unpleasant, such as memories
of early childhood abuse.18
• You will more accurately recall neutral information associated with
pleasant information or a pleasant context, or as psychologists
phrase it, you will have ‘‘more accurate recall for neutral stimuli
associated with pleasant stimuli.’’19 Psychologists have
come to this conclusion by making comparisons in the lab,
such as whether subjects better remember commercials or the
brands featured in them when they see them before or after
violent and nonviolent films. Again and again, psychologists
have found significantly better recall when nonviolent, and
presumably more pleasant, films are shown.20 The finding
makes perfect sense and you can see examples of how this
works in everyday life. For example, when you are experiencing
or seeing something pleasant, you will feel more comfortable
and relaxed, which will contribute to your remembering
something you read, hear, or perceive in this relaxed state. By
contrast, if you are experiencing something unpleasant, you
will feel more stress and tension; the experience may even interfere
with your ability to concentrate, such as by distracting
your attention, so you encode and remember less.
• You will retain your pleasant memories longer, while unpleasant memories
will fade faster. It’s a principle some researchers discovered
when they asked subjects to record personal events for about
three months and rate how pleasant they were, and three
months later, asked them to rate the events again. While there
was little change for the neutral and pleasant events, most of
the subjects rated the less pleasant events as more pleasant
when they recalled them again. The one unexpected finding
was that if subjects tended to feel depressed, they were more
likely to better recall the unpleasant memories.21 But this finding
makes sense when you think about it. You are more likely
to focus on and remember the experiences you have found
pleasant in your life, since they will make you feel better. But if
you are unhappy, you will be more likely to recall the negative,
unpleasant experiences you have had, though these will contribute
to keeping you feeling down.
Cognitive psychologists have additionally found that just as
there is improved memory when the context matches, so there is a
match between what you remember and your mood. If you are in a
good mood, you will remember pleasant material better than unpleasant
material, while if you are in a bad mood, you will better
remember unpleasant material. Likewise, if you are a generally upbeat
person, your memory for positive information will be greater
than the memory of someone who tends to be down and depressed.
In turn, these positive memories will help keep someone who is positive
upbeat, while a depressed person could become even more down
in the dumps as they remember more negative memories.22 In other
words, as the old popular song puts it: ‘‘accentuate the positive’’ in
what you think about and remember if you want to feel better. 34
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