Thesis (Ph.D.)--Aberdeen University, 2009. / Title from web page (viewed on Dec. 1, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Flashbulb memories are highly vivid and long-lasting memories for events that are emotionally significant and personally important. These memories are held in very high confidence in accuracy over an extended period. In particular, individuals believe that they can remember the personal details surrounding the event such as where they were and what they were doing at the time the event occurred. Evidence from research, however, indicates that this may not be the case. The study of flashbulb memories has typically been confined to negative events such as September 11, 2001. In the current study, we employ the methods of Talarico and Rubin (2003) to investigate flashbulb memory formation to a positive event. The event is the assassination of Osama bin Laden, which resonated as a highly positive event for many Americans evidenced by the thousands of people flooding the streets of Washington, D.C. and New York City to celebrate. We examined various memory properties over a one-year period, including vividness, rehearsal, belief in accuracy, and consistency. Results confirm the formation of flashbulb memories to the assassination event, but results did not support many of the proposed hypotheses. Some differences were found for different testing groups (i.e., immediate versus one week delay), but these were not replicated at the one year follow-up. Overall, however, it is believed that the current event, while still a flashbulb memory, was not a strong enough event to stir strong emotions and form memories on par with 9/11.

Anatomy of Loss contains a foreword, which discusses the place of autobiography in fiction, and five original short stories.

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This program of research was designed to examine the role of thought suppression in the retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). The principal theory proposed here is that thought suppression is an important mechanism in explaining certain ABM retrieval patterns relevant to trauma and self-harm. Study 1 examined the role of thought suppression as a correlate of ABM retrieval in a nonclinical student sample, and showed that higher levels of thought suppression were significantly correlated with the faster recall of negative episodic ABMs as well as the recall of fewer personal semantic memories. Study 2 used a suppression manipulation procedure designed to examine whether this was a causal relationship, and revealed that induced thought suppression directly led to a significant enhancement in the retrieval of negative episodic ABMs as well as significantly fewer overgeneral first responses to negative cues. Furthermore, the induced thought suppression also resulted in the recall of significantly fewer personal semantic memories. Together these results support the theory that thought suppression is an important factor in ABM recall. The enhanced recall of negative memories could be particularly important in individuals who are self-harming, suicidal and/or suffering from PTSD, as enhanced negative recall has previously been observed in these populations. In order to further examine how thought suppression affects ABM retrieval and whether the enhanced negative recall observed in Study 2 was a result of mood-congruent recall, Study 3 used a similar suppression manipulation paradigm to examine the effects of induced thought suppression on mood. The results suggested that the enhanced negative ABM recall was unlikely to have been a by-product of the suppression manipulation resulting in a more negative mood state. Finally, Study 4 examined the role of thought suppression and ABM recall in a clinical sample of self-harming adolescents (who also reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms). The results showed that levels of thought suppression were significantly higher in the self-harmers than the control group, indicating that thought suppression is an important coping mechanism in self-harmers. Furthermore, in terms of the autobiographical memory retrieval, it was found that the self-harmers were significantly faster in their retrieval of negative episodic ABMs and recalled fewer personal semantic memories than the control group. Multiple regression analysis of the data revealed that thought suppression remained as the most important predictor of variability in negative episodic ABM retrieval and personal semantic memory retrieval, even when variability explained by symptoms of depression and PTSD was considered. This program of research extends current theories of ABM retrieval by identifying thought suppression as a cognitive mechanism that directly affects the retrieval of both episodic as well as personal semantic ABMs. The theoretical importance and clinical relevance of this program of research are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the overgenerality phenomenon and to draw some inferences on possible encoding problems of autobiographical memories (ABMs) in a non-clinically depressed sample. Eighty-eight university students (25 male, 63 female) participated in the experiment using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT / Williams &amp / Broadbent, 1986). The effects of depression level (low or high), cue emotional valences (positive, negative and neutral) and cue number (one or two at each step) on the specificity, overgenerality, and latency of the ABMs recalled were examined. The results showed that the group having high depression scores (Depressed group) was less specific than the group having low depression scores (Non-depressed group) on the specificity levels of the ABMs recalled. Also, the students who were primed with one cue in the AMT were less specific than the students who were primed with two cues simultaneously. The depressed group primed with one cue also recalled less specific ABMs than the non-depressed group primed with two cues / and, the non-depressed group primed with either one cue or two cues in the AMT did not differ in terms of the specificity of the ABMs recalled. Regarding the cue type, the students recalled less specific ABMs as a response to the positive cues than to the neutral cues. However, they did not differ on the specificity of ABMs recalled as a response to the negative and neutral cue words in the AMT. Additionally, the significant interaction between depression level and cue type / cue type and cue number / and, depression level, cue type, and cue number could be summarized with the overall findings that the depressed subjects had the benefit of the two cues priming in the AMT by being more specific on ABMs. For the overgenerality, as a counterpart of the specificity, the results also indicated that the subjects in the depressed group were more overgeneral on the ABM recall than the non-depressed group / and, the simultaneous two cues priming in the AMT had an effect to decrease the overgenerality seen in one cue conditions. The interactions between depression level and cue number, and cue type and cue number on the overgeneral ABM recalls further indicate that the subjects took the benefit of two cues priming with a decrease on overgeneral recall. This benefit of two cues is also seen on the reaction times of specific ABM recalls. Moreover, the subjects reported that they utilized the cues more consecutively than simultaneously and they reported to utilize the first cues more than the second cue when the paired cues were emotional. However, the preference for sequence was almost equal for the neutral-neutral pairs. Supporting the hypotheses of the study, the results suggested that multiple cues in the AMT had an effect to increase the specificity level of the ABMs recalled in the depressed subjects, which was not seen in one-cue conditions. Findings were discussed on the basis of the literature and some proposals were given on the overgenerality of the ABMs by emphasizing the encoding processes.

Thesis (Inaugural-Dissertation)--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

The armchair social scientist will notice that individuals frequently refer to consumption that occurred in childhood. Books, toys, movies, cartoon characters, and even favorite foods are just a few examples of these childhood consumption referents. In her now well-cited and classic study on 15 different consumer-brand relationships, Fournier (1998) identified individual's relationships with childhood consumption referents and called them childhood friendships. Nevertheless, there is a relative dearth of consumer research exploring effects of marketing that begin in childhood and extend into adulthood, what functions childhood friendships might serve, and what consequences there might be to these relationships. In my dissertation, I aim to contribute to the consumer psychology literature with two separate essays pertinent to childhood friendships. In the first essay, I explore the meaning of these relationships and the functions they serve in consumer identity throughout the life cycle. In the second essay, I examine effects of early childhood brand relationships on biased judgments and decision-making.