Memory-Related Emotion Regulation and its Relation to Internalizing Symptoms

• Published in: Cognitive therapy and research Vol. 44; no. 6; pp. 1162 - 1176
• Main Authors: del Palacio-Gonzalez, Adriana, Berntsen, Dorthe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2020
• Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Cognitive Psychology; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original Article; Quality of Life Research; Life events; Autobiographical memory; Depression; Anxiety; Internalizing; Appraisal; Event centrality; Emotion regulation
• ISSN: 0147-5916; 1573-2819
• DOI: 10.1007/s10608-020-10137-w

Background Memory-related emotion-regulation is the emotion-regulation strategies employed in response to the retrieval of specific autobiographical memories. We propose that memory-related emotion-regulation may facilitate the link between a memory’s centrality to an individual’s identity and internalizing symptoms as identified in previous work. Method In two studies (Ns = 229 and 199), Amazon MTurk workers reported the use of five emotion regulation strategies in relation to recent memories that were judged to be either highly central or less central to their identity. Further, participants completed different measures of depression and anxiety symptoms. Results Across both studies, high-centrality memories were associated with greater employment of emotion regulation strategies than low-centrality memories. Brooding over high-centrality memories (but not low-centrality memories) predicted depressive symptoms. For anxiety, in Study 1, emotion regulation for both high- and low-centrality memories was associated with higher generalized anxiety disorder symptoms (i.e. worry). In Study 2, emotion regulation of high-centrality memories (but not low-centrality memories) predicted fear and panic symptoms. Conclusions Highly central memories were associated with a distinct emotional experience and emotion regulation strategies. Brooding, when remembering highly central events, was robustly associated with all types of internalizing symptoms. Other emotion regulation strategies showed less consistent patterns, and emotion regulation for low centrality memories was related only to worry. Overall, the findings underscore the importance that memory centrality has for understanding emotion regulation when experiencing elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms.