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EXAGGERATED MEMORIES OF ANGER IN THE WAKE OF POLITICAL EVENTS

Dec 29, 2021 BY Linda J. Levine



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Societies are becoming increasingly polarized as people stockpile memories of
political victories and grievances. What’s worse, these memories are not always
accurate. Conflicting accounts, fake news, and conspiracy theories sow confusion
about even the most basic facts concerning political events.

People’s memories of how political events made them feel are also easily
distorted. Misremembering events and feelings can inflame political debate,
driving individuals and groups further apart. This led my colleagues and me to
ask whether people with detailed and accurate memories of the facts about
political events are also better at remembering how those events made them feel.

To find out, we tested people’s memories of the facts and their feelings
concerning two highly-emotional political events—Donald Trump’s victory in the
2016 U.S. presidential election and the 2018 referendum vote in Ireland in favor
of repealing a law that effectively banned abortion except in cases of
substantial risk to the life of the mother. Just days after each event, we asked
people to rate how angry, scared, and happy they were feeling. Six months later,
we asked them (1) to rate how they were currently feeling about the events, (2)
to recall their past feelings, and (3) to recall factual information about the
events.

For example, 571 U.S. community members and undergraduates were asked to
remember facts such as how Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign, and
on which congressman’s laptop did James Comey find emails pertinent to the
investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email use. Over 700 Irish community members
and undergraduates were asked to remember facts such as what percentage of the
country voted to repeal the country’s restrictive constitutional amendment on
abortion. 

We also included a unique group of participants in our study of the 2016
election: people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). People
with HSAM are often referred to in the media as “the people who never forget.”
They remember personal and public events—even those that happened decades
ago—with extraordinary accuracy, vividness, and detail.

This rare ability was first studied in detail by Professor James McGaugh and his
colleagues at the University of California, Irvine. Fewer than 100 people with
HSAM have been identified worldwide based on extensive testing of the accuracy of
verifiable autobiographical and public memories. Our study included 33 of these
individuals who had been pretested and shown to have HSAM. This gave us an
additional, novel way to find out if people with a firm grasp on the facts about
political events are also more accurate at remembering how those events made
them feel.

What did we find? Despite the different political events, countries, and
historical backgrounds, the results of our two studies were strikingly similar.
Overall, people were pretty good at remembering how they felt.

Nevertheless, when we looked at the difference between people’s initial and
remembered emotions, we found some consistent memory biases. People exaggerated
when remembering how angry they had felt about the political events but
underestimated their feelings of happiness and fear. These biases effectively
stripped nuance from their memories of their past emotional experience. People
with more accurate memories of the facts concerning political events were just
as susceptible to these biases in remembering their feelings.


EVEN PEOPLE WITH HIGHLY SUPERIOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY

Not surprisingly, people with HSAM remembered facts about the 2016 election
significantly better than other participants. But when it came to remembering
how Trump’s victory made them feel, they were just as prone to memory bias as
other participants! So, greater accuracy in remembering events did not make
people better at remembering emotions, either for the main group of participants
or for those with an extraordinary ability to recall autobiographical events.

We also found that accuracy in remembering facts versus feelings stems from
different sources. People who followed media reports more closely, and those who
talked more with others about political events, had better memory for facts. The
repetition of details in media reports and conversations—as long as the details
provided are correct—helps people retain accurate factual memories.

But to remember how they felt, people can only rely on their own experience. We
saw evidence of this when people remembered how they felt about Trump’s victory
or about the repeal of Ireland’s highly restrictive law on abortion. We compared
people’s current feelings and views about these events days, versus six months,
after they happened. The more consistent people’s feelings and views stayed over
time, the more accurately they remembered how they had initially felt. The more
their feelings and views changed over time, the less accurately they remembered
their feelings. So, people tend to misremember how they truly felt about events
in the past if they have competing feelings and beliefs about those events in
the present.


MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION

Memory reconstruction—updating our memories of the past to reflect our current
feelings and beliefs—serves important functions. It lets us correct past
misunderstandings and retain what we learn.

But amidst increasing political polarization, misremembering emotion can be
harmful. Norms of tolerance and moderation are eroding in many societies
worldwide. People’s tendency to exaggerate their past feelings of anger is
worrisome because research shows that anger leads people to downplay risks,
overlook commonalities between groups, and seek out confrontation. This makes
the current political context even more toxic. In short, misremembering emotion
can both stem from and stoke animosity, contributing to a destructive cycle of
political polarization.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Further Reading

Levine, L.J., Murphy, G., Lench, H.C., Greene, C.M., Loftus, E.F., Tinti, C.,
Schmidt, S., Muzzulini, B., Grady, R.H., Stark, S.M., & Stark, C.E. (2021).
Remembering facts versus feelings in the wake of political events. Cognition and
Emotion, 35(5), 936-955. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2021.1910496

LePort, A. K., Mattfeld, A. T., Dickinson-Anson, H., Fallon, J. H., Stark, C.
E., Kruggel, F., Cahill, L., & McGaugh, J. L. (2012). Behavioral and
neuroanatomical investigation of highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM).
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 98(1), 78-92.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2012.05.002

Levine, L. J. (1997). Reconstructing memory for emotions. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 126(2), 165-177.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.126.2.165

 

Linda J. Levine is a Professor of Psychological Science at the University of
California, Irvine. She studies how people’s emotions affect their memories, how
anticipating future emotion guides people’s decisions, and the ways people
regulate emotion.

 

TAGS:

Character & Context Blog
emotion
memory
politics
anger
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