A recent theory (Roese & Summerville, 2005) has suggested that regret is intensified by perceptions of future opportunity. In this work, however, it is proposed that feelings of regret are more likely elicited by perceptions of lost opportunity: People regret outcomes that could have been changed in the past but can no longer be changed and for which people experience low psychological closure. Consistent with the lost opportunity principle, Study 1 revealed that regretted experiences in the most commonly regretted life domains are perceived as offering the least opportunity for improvement in the future, Study 2 indicated that people experience the most regret for outcomes that are not repeatable, and Study 3 revealed that perceptions of higher past than future opportunities and low psychological closure predict regret intensity. Discussion focuses on the hope-inducing yet ephemeral nature of perceived future opportunity and on the relationship between dissonance reduction and closure.

A theory is proposed that life events are remembered with a satisfying sense of closure when there is decreased emotional detail in the constructed autobiographical memory representation. The first three studies show that, although properties of the experienced event (such as valence and recency) accounted for some variance in participants' sense of closure, the amount of emotional detail in the memory was also a significant predictor. The third study shows that emotion-focused biased retelling of the experience increased emotional detail and decreased the sense of closure participants reported. Related approaches and implications for psychological adjustment are discussed.

Theories of autobiographical memory posit a social function, meaning that recollecting and sharing memories of specific discrete events creates and maintains relationship intimacy. Eight studies with 1,271 participants tested whether sharing specific autobiographical memories in conversations increases feelings of closeness among conversation partners, relative to sharing other self-related information. The first 2 studies revealed that conversations in which specific autobiographical memories were shared were also accompanied by feelings of closeness among conversation partners. The next 5 studies experimentally introduced specific autobiographical memories versus general information about the self into conversations between mostly unacquainted pairs of participants. Discussing specific autobiographical memories led to greater closeness among conversation partners than discussing nonself-related topics, but no greater closeness than discussing other, more general self-related information. In the final study unacquainted pairs in whom feelings of closeness had been experimentally induced through shared humor were more likely to discuss specific autobiographical memories than unacquainted control participant pairs. We conclude that sharing specific autobiographical memories may express more than create relationship closeness, and discuss how relationship closeness may afford sharing of specific autobiographical memories by providing common ground, a social display, or a safety signal.

Abstract-

People typically provide higher similarity ratings in response to the question "HoII' similar is the typical preppie to you?" than to the question "HoII' similar are you to the typical preppie?" Observed asymmetries in comparisons of the self and person prototypes hm'e been offered as el'idence that the self-concept acts as a habitual reference point in social judgmelll. HOII'ever, such a task does not test the habitual placemelll of a concept ill the referell1 position of a comparisoll. In this sllldy, participants judged the similarity between the self and person prototypes in response to lillguistic (forced tlirectional) queries or to spatial (nonforced) queries in which the self was positioned above or beloll' the person concept. Participants also rated pairs offamiliar and unfamiliar countries in a similar manner, to replicate and extend the 1I'0rk of Tl'ersl..)' (/977), Expected asymmetries were observed in forced comparisolls: The self and the familiar COlintry lI'ere seen as more similar to other people alld less familiar cOlllllries, respectil'ely, whellthe former cOllcepts served as the referent of a comparison thall whell they sen'ed as the subject. Asymmetries were 1I0t observed ill the nOllforced conditions, and mean similarity in these conditiolls was of the same magnitude as in the forced condition in which the more familiar stimulus lI'as the referent of the comparison. This result provides the first direct el'idence that the self serves as a habitual referellt in similarity judgments.