Networks of prospective thoughts: The organisational role of emotion and its impact on well-being

Abstract

Recent research has shown that many prospective thoughts are organized in networks of related events, but the relational dimensions that contribute to the formation of such networks are not fully understood. Here we investigated the organizational role of emotion by using cues of different valence for eliciting event networks. We found that manipulating the emotional valence of cues influenced the characteristics of events within networks, and that members of a network were more similar to each other on affective components than they were to members of other networks. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of events within networks were part of thematic clusters and cluster membership significantly modulated the impact of represented events on current well-being, in part through an intensification of the emotion felt when thinking about these events. These findings demonstrate that emotion contributes to the organization of future thoughts in networks that can affect people's well-being.

Cognitive integration of personal or public events affects mental health: Examining memory networks in a case of natural flooding disaster

“…Recently, Pillemer and colleagues () suggested that existing definitions of episodic autobiographical memories should also include mental representations of specific events that happened to other people. The present findings provide further support to this position and extend it by showing that either personal or public event memories can impact well‐being and that memories of those public events are organized in memory networks just like other personal memories (Demblon & D'Argembeau, ). Moreover, those networked memories can further influence well‐being and mental health symptoms, independently of how the personal or public floods‐related memory was encoded.…”

“…Participants were provided with three textboxes, but were instructed that they could describe as many networked memories as they wished, up to three. This procedure has been used in past research on memories and memory networks (e.g., Demblon & D'Argembeau, ; Philippe et al, ; Philippe, Koestner, Lecours, et al, ; Philippe, Lecours, & Beaulieu‐Pelletier, ). Some participants described at least one other natural disaster event as networked memories (34.4%), but most described other types of events (which did not occur during the present floods) as various as accidents, loss of important possessions, death of a close relative, difficult romantic breakups, buying or moving to a new house, or political events .…”

“…Research on memory networks has only examined how personal memories and future prospections are organized in networks (e.g., Demblon & D'Argembeau, ). Therefore, it is unknown how public memories are organized and whether the buffering or amplifying effect of this organization is the same as for personal memories.…”

Episodic future thinking: mechanisms and functions

“…When constructing a future episode people typically access general personal knowledge before generating episodic details (40), organize episodic future thoughts into event clusters that reflect the influence of higher-order schematic, conceptual, and affective knowledge (41–42), and indicate a stronger subjective sense of “pre-experiencing” for future events that are associated with personal goals than for those that are not (43). Thus the construction of episodic details and integration of those details with higher-order autobiographical knowledge may represent distinct components of episodic future thinking (43).…”

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

“…Such episodic simulation conveys great adaptive value by eliciting the emotional impact that a future episode might hold (4)(5)(6). However, dwelling on the future can also be detrimental to our well-being.…”