Content area
Full Text
Social Cognition, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1997, pp. 157-181
LINDA ). LEVINE AND STEWART L. BURGESS
University of California, Irvine
This research examined the effects of happiness, anger, and sadness on partici pants' memory for different types of information in a narrative. Happiness and negative emotions were evoked in undergraduates (N 263) by randomly assign ing grades of "A" or "D" on a surprise quiz. Immediately afterwards, subjects participated in what they believed to be an unrelated study during which they heard and recalled a narrative and described their emotional state. Participants in the positive emotion condition recalled more of the narrative as a whole than did participants in the negative emotion condition. Analyses based on self-reported
emotions indicated that happiness had a general facilitative effect on recall, whereas anger and sadness were associated with enhanced recall of information concerning goals and outcomes respectively. These findings indicate that specific
emotions differ in their effects on memory and that negative emotions may facilitate selective encoding of functional information.
Research on the effects of emotions on memory has increased dramati
cally in recent years, but the upshot of this body of research remains
unclear. Several studies have shown that autobiographical events asso
ciated with intense emotion are recalled in greater detail than are less emotional events (Bohannon, 1992; Brown & Kulik, 1977; Goodman,
Hirschman, Hepps, & Rudy, 1991; Pillemer, 1984). A recall advantage
for emotionally-arousing material over neutral material has also been
shown in a number of laboratory studies (Cahill, Prins, Weber, &
McGaugh, 1994; Heuer & Reisberg, 1990; for reviews, see Bradley, 1994;
Christianson, 1992; Heuer & Reisberg, 1992). Whereas these findings
We are grateful to Gerald Clore, Ellen Greenberger, Larry Jamner, Tracy Laulhere,
Maithilee Pathak, Daniel Reisberg, and Carol Whalen for their helpful comments during
various stages of this project. We would also like to thank Rachelle Ang, Jennifer Brown,
Kim Lisnek, Mara McClain, Nghia Nguyen, Lynette Tay, and Heidi Williamson for coding
data.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Linda J. Levine, Univer
sity of California, Irvine, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, 3340 Social
Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697-7085; or, e-mail: [email protected].
157
BEYOND GENERAL AROUSAL:
EFFECTS OF SPECIFIC EMOTIONS ON MEMORY
158 LEVINE AND BURGESS
suggest that emotional arousal enhances...