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The effects of revisionism on remembered emotion: The valence of older, voluntary immigrants' pre-migration autobiographical memories
Journal article

The effects of revisionism on remembered emotion: The valence of older, voluntary immigrants' pre-migration autobiographical memories

Robert W Schrauf and Lesa Hoffman
Applied cognitive psychology, Vol.21(7), pp.895-913
2007
DOI: 10.1002/acp.1304

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Abstract

Prior research on remembered emotion demonstrates effects of revisionism in memory. The positivity bias describes preferential recall for positive emotions and the fading affect bias describes greater fading of negative versus positive emotion over time. Such effects predict that older adults would remember childhood and youth more positively than later adulthood. However, economic immigrants, whose childhood and youth reflect experiences of poverty and unemployment, may not show the effects of such revisionism. This study examined the remembered emotion of immigrant and non-immigrant older Puerto Ricans whose early years corresponded to hard times on the island. Multilevel modelling showed that both groups exhibited the effects of the positivity and fading affect biases, but immigrants remembered childhood and youth more negatively than non-immigrants. This suggests both accurate memory for a more negative past as well the effects of additional revisionism whereby a valued and chosen present is preferentially compared to the past. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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