Positive and Negative Vicarious Memories in College Students and Adults.

Three studies investigated how memory valence (positive vs. negative) and memory type (personal vs. vicarious) influenced ratings of phenomenological quality and self, directive, and social functions in samples of college students (Study 1) and adults (Studies 2 and 3). Study 1 found partial evidence of a positivity bias for ratings of personal but not vicarious memories. Additionally, personal memories were rated higher than vicarious for all functions and phenomenological ratings. Studies 2 and 3 confirmed that while personal memories showed a positivity bias, that positivity bias disappeared for vicarious memories. Study 2 also demonstrated that negative vicarious memories were rated equally to negative personal memories for the directive and social functions, and Study 3 found for the first time that negative vicarious memories were rated higher than negative personal memories for the social function. Negative vicarious memories serve important social and directive functions for late midlife adults. General Audience Summary: While autobiographical memory refers to recollections of experiences that centrally involve the self, vicarious memories are not personally experienced and are created from the life experiences that others verbally tell us about. This study had adults and college students write about personal memories they shared with a parent and vicarious memories a parent shared with them with an aim of understanding how and when the qualities (like vividness or emotional intensity) of positive and negative personal and vicarious memories differ. Along with rating the qualities, they also rated to what extent they use these different memory types to help form a sense of identity, maintain social bonds, and plan future behaviors. Previous research has found differences between personal and vicarious, positive and negative memories, but no studies have done so with adults in their 50s and 60s. The results showed that college students consistently rated their personal memories higher than their vicarious memories, both in terms of the quality of the memories and the purpose the memory served. For adults, a different pattern emerged for their ratings of maintaining social bonds and planning future behaviors. They reported that a negative memory from their own life helped them to plan future behaviors to the same extent as a negative memory they heard secondhand from their parent's life story, and, in one study, that the negative memory from their parent's life influenced their relationships with others more than a negative memory from their own life. It is important for midlife and older adults to know and remember negative events from their parents' lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]