Personality and emotional memory: How regulating emotion impairs memory for emotional events

In everyday life, individuals actively regulate their emotions in a variety of ways. One common form of emotion regulation is expressive suppression, which entails inhibiting outward signs of emotion. Although expressive suppression is often undertaken with an eye to looking calm despite feeling emotional, an analysis of its self-regulatory demands suggests that this form of emotion regulation may come at a cognitive price. We tested this hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, we measured spontaneously occurring expressive suppression during a Wlm that depicted a surgical procedure, and then assessed memory for the Wlm. Greater use of suppression predicted worse memory. In Study 2, we examined expressive suppression during a Wlm that depicted a conXictual conversation, and we measured memory for what was said during the conversation. To gauge the magnitude of any cognitive costs, we compared expressive suppression with self-distraction, which entails intentionally trying not to think about something. Both spontaneously occurring and experimentally induced suppression were associated with worse memory. Strikingly, these eVects were comparable to the eVects of spontaneously occurring and experimentally induced distraction. These studies suggest that “simply” keeping a stiV upper lip during an emotional event exacts a cognitive toll that is as great as intentional The authors thank undergraduate research assistants Joyce Anderson, Dale Kim, Margaret Monge, and Stephanie Snook for recruiting participants and collecting data for this program of research. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.M. Richards). 632 J.M. Richards, J.J. Gross / Journal of Research in Personality 40 (2006) 631–651 cognitive avoidance. We argue that eVorts to understand links between emotion and memory must consider emotion regulation. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.