They say, "One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory," but according to science, that's terrible advice. Scientists found that memory may play a role in how quickly individuals are able to bounce back from the depression, especially among midlife and older adults.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently linked episodic memory to the ability to recover from negative events. Lead researcher Rebecca Ready, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, said that the findings are important because it is the first study to look at how episodic memory, or the ability to recall past experiences rooted in a specific time and place, influences "emotion recovery."
"Older adults with stronger scores on cognitive tasks have advantages in regulating their emotions," said Ready.
Ready and her team believe the latest findings suggest that "stronger memory may facilitate emotion recovery and this may be particularly true for older adults." On the other hand, the findings may also suggest that "older adults with memory impairment may be at risk for emotion dysregulation."
The latest study involved 23 adults aged 19 to 23 years old as well as 21 older adults aged 52 to 79 years old. Participants were asked to answer a questionnaire about their momentary emotions before viewing a 12-minute montage of sad movie clips. Participants were then asked to report their emotions immediately after the video and again after a brief recovery period.
The study involved clips from films like "Up," "Steel Magnolias," "Sophie's Choice" and "Pay It Forward." Participants in the study reacted to sad clips with greater feelings of sadness and hostility and lower feelings of cheerfulness and friendliness. Participants' memories were measured by answering questions about events that happened in the video after viewing 15 still images: five were from the videos in the study and 10 were from other videos.
The study revealed that participants with better memory had better emotional recovery than those with poorer memory.
"Participants with better memory for details about the films recovered more thoroughly from the mood induction than participants with lower scores," researchers wrote.
Researchers found that age was also a significant factor in determining emotional recovery. Study analysis revealed a stronger, positive correlation between better memory and recovering feelings of happiness among older adults in the study.
"It is unclear why recovery in negative emotions was not moderated by age as predicted," concluded Ready. "The lack of effects here may be a consequence of the small sample and/or an indication that positive emotion recovery is a better index of effective emotion regulation than negative emotion recovery. Future work is necessary to explore these ideas."
The findings were published in the journal Experimental Aging Research.