Retrieval of negative autobiographical memories is associated with hostile attributions in ambiguous situations amongst people with schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is characterised by difficulty understanding the thoughts and intentions of other people. Misunderstandings could lead people to attribute hostility to others’ actions. Theories suggest that we use our autobiographical memories to inform our understanding of other people but no study has examined the relation between memory and hostile attributions in schizophrenia. People with ( n = 42) and without ( n = 34) schizophrenia diagnoses completed The Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ) to assess their tendency to attribute hostility to other people’s actions and the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) to assess their ability to recall specific positive and negative autobiographical memories. In linear regressions the interaction between diagnostic group and the proportion of specific negative memories participants retrieved explained significant variance in each AIHQ index. Follow-up correlation analyses showed that participants with schizophrenia who retrieved more negative memories also attributed greater hostility to other people’s actions ( r = 0.47) and reported that they would respond with greater aggression ( r = 0.59). These correlations were in the opposite direction for controls. People with schizophrenia may use their memories for negative past events to understand the actions and intentions of other people, leading to attributions of hostility for otherwise benign actions.

The current state of memory Specificity Training (MeST) for emotional disorders

“…We use our autobiographical memories to regulate negative affect [26] and solve problems [27,28]. Our memories help us to understand others' intentions [29] and to develop intimacy [30][31][32] and attract support [33] from them. We use our memories to simulate possible future events [34][35][36][37] which in turn produces anticipatory pleasure [38][39][40] and hope [41,42].…”

Social episodic memory in severe alcohol use disorder: Positive encoding bias and negative bias in accessibility of interpersonal information

“…Likewise, facilitated access to negative versus positive interaction memories may negatively taint one's social worldview and increase pessimistic apprehensions of future interactions (MacLeod & Campbell, 1992;. Crucially, and analogously to recent reasoning in schizophrenia (Barry et al, 2019), this bias may further lead patients to rely more frequently on negative social experiences to interpret incoming social information and partially explain the well-documented hostile attributions (Freeman et al, 2018;Pabst, Peyroux, et al, 2020) that characterize SAUD. That said, we argue that our insights should also be contextualized alongside previous research, notably highlighting modifications in social attention in SAUD as additional mechanisms.…”

“…Patients have been found to misperceive neutral or sad facial expressions as displaying anger, contempt, or disgust (e.g., Freeman et al., 2018; Philippot et al., 1999) and attribute hostile intentions to others in ambiguous situations (Pabst, Peyroux, et al., 2020). Disproportionate memory for threatening, or a reduced preference for positive, social information may be involved in such biases (Barry et al., 2019).…”