Momentous occasions can be meaningful, but new research suggests remembering mundane moments can bring unexpected pleasures.
A recent Association for Psychological Science study showed how humans can rarely predict how they will feel about something and how well we'll remember a moment in the future. This quality could help explain why we are often obsessive about photo albums and journals but rarely document mundane occurrences such as conversations with friends.
"We generally do not think about today's ordinary moments as experiences that are worthy of being rediscovered in the future. However, our studies show that we are often wrong: What is ordinary now actually becomes more extraordinary in the future - and more extraordinary than we might expect," said psychological scientist and lead researcher Ting Zhang of Harvard Business School.
Researchers had 135 college students create time capsules at the beginning of the summer and write down a number of experiences they had recently had, including: "the last social event they attended, a recent conversation, three songs they were currently listening to, and an excerpt from a final paper they had written," the Association reported.
For each recorded memory the participants were asked to rate how "curious and surprised" they would be to read about it later on and how meaningful they would feel it to be. Three months later the students opened these capsules; the results showed the students significantly underestimated their curiosity and interest in the subjects covered in the time capsule.
In another study participants significantly underestimated how much they would enjoy reading about a typical experience with their partner, but accurately predicted how they would feel while reading about a special experience such as Valentine's Day.
A final study revealed only 27 percent of participants chose to write about a recent conversation they had over watching a video of a talk-show interviewer; one month later 58 percent of the participants chose to read about the conversation they had. Participants were also overly-optimistic in how much of the conversation they would remember.
"People find a lot of joy in rediscovering a music playlist from months ago or an old joke with a neighbor, even though those things did not seem particularly meaningful in the moment," Zhang said. "The studies highlight the importance of not taking the present for granted and documenting the mundane moments of daily life to give our future selves the joy of rediscovering them."
The findings were published in Psychological Science.
