TY - JOUR
T1 - Affect Recall Bias: Being Resilient by Distorting Reality
AU - Colombo, Desirée
AU - Suso-Ribera, Carlos
AU - Fernández-Álvarez, Javier
AU - Cipresso, Pietro
AU - Garcia-Palacios, Azucena
AU - Riva, Giuseppe
AU - Botella, Cristina
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Background: According to a growing body of literature, people are quite inaccurate in recalling past affective experiences. Nevertheless, the mechanism underlying this recall bias (i.e., the tendency to overestimate and/or underestimate positive or negative past emotional experiences) remains unclear, and its association with mental health has not been studied yet. Methods: We adopted a smartphone-based Ecological Momentary Assessment to monitor daily affect (n = 92) and investigate the association between affect recall bias, mental health and resilience. Results: While the tendency to overestimate negative affective experiences was observed in participants reporting mild depressive symptoms, positive affect (PA) overestimation as compared to PA underestimation was associated with better mental health (i.e. higher psychological well-being and lower depressive and anxiety symptoms) through the enhancement of resilience. Furthermore, positively biased participants (i.e. PA over estimators) benefited from greater well-being, even when compared to accurate individuals. Conclusions: While people appear to use retrospective PA overestimation as a strategy to enhance well-being and resilience, they are not likely to underestimate past negative experiences to feel better. Accordingly, owning an optimistic vision of the past may represent an adaptive “distortion” of reality that fosters people’s mental health. The clinical implications of cultivating PA and learning strategies to regulate both negative and positive emotions are discussed.
AB - Background: According to a growing body of literature, people are quite inaccurate in recalling past affective experiences. Nevertheless, the mechanism underlying this recall bias (i.e., the tendency to overestimate and/or underestimate positive or negative past emotional experiences) remains unclear, and its association with mental health has not been studied yet. Methods: We adopted a smartphone-based Ecological Momentary Assessment to monitor daily affect (n = 92) and investigate the association between affect recall bias, mental health and resilience. Results: While the tendency to overestimate negative affective experiences was observed in participants reporting mild depressive symptoms, positive affect (PA) overestimation as compared to PA underestimation was associated with better mental health (i.e. higher psychological well-being and lower depressive and anxiety symptoms) through the enhancement of resilience. Furthermore, positively biased participants (i.e. PA over estimators) benefited from greater well-being, even when compared to accurate individuals. Conclusions: While people appear to use retrospective PA overestimation as a strategy to enhance well-being and resilience, they are not likely to underestimate past negative experiences to feel better. Accordingly, owning an optimistic vision of the past may represent an adaptive “distortion” of reality that fosters people’s mental health. The clinical implications of cultivating PA and learning strategies to regulate both negative and positive emotions are discussed.
KW - Affect recall bias
KW - Cognitive bias
KW - Ecological momentary assessment
KW - Well-being
KW - Affect recall bias
KW - Cognitive bias
KW - Ecological momentary assessment
KW - Well-being
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/180011
U2 - 10.1007/s10608-020-10122-3
DO - 10.1007/s10608-020-10122-3
M3 - Article
SN - 0147-5916
VL - 44
SP - 906
EP - 918
JO - Cognitive Therapy and Research
JF - Cognitive Therapy and Research
ER -