Worrying about the future: An episodic specificity induction impacts problem solving, reappraisal, and well-being.

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that an episodic specificity induction – brief training in recollecting details of a recent experience – enhances performance on various subsequent tasks thought to draw upon episodic memory processes. Existing work has also shown that mental simulation can be beneficial for emotion regulation and coping with stressors. Here we focus on understanding how episodic detail can affect problem solving, reappraisal, and psychological well-being regarding worrisome future events. In Experiment 1, an episodic specificity induction significantly improved participants’ performance on a subsequent means-end problem solving task (i.e., more relevant steps) and an episodic reappraisal task (i.e., more episodic details) involving personally worrisome future events compared with a control induction not focused on episodic specificity. Imagining constructive behaviors with increased episodic detail via the specificity induction was also related to significantly larger decreases in anxiety, perceived likelihood of a bad outcome, and perceived difficulty to cope with a bad outcome, as well as larger increases in perceived likelihood of a good outcome and indicated use of active coping behaviors compared with the control. In Experiment 2, we extended these findings using a more stringent control induction, and found preliminary evidence that the specificity induction was related to an increase in positive affect and decrease in negative affect compared with the control. Our findings support the idea that episodic memory processes are involved in means-end problem solving and episodic reappraisal, and that increasing the episodic specificity of imagining constructive behaviors regarding worrisome events may be related to improved psychological well-being.

Episodic specificity induction impacts activity in a core brain network during construction of imagined future experiences

“…After receiving an episodic specificity induction (vs. a control induction), participants subsequently remembered past and imagined future experiences with increased episodic but not semantic detail, and the specificity induction had no effect on details generated during tasks that do not draw on episodic memory, such as describing a picture (7) or defining and comparing words (8). We have also shown that the specificity induction boosts performance on such tasks as means-end problem solving (9,10) and divergent creative thinking (11) that have also been linked previously to episodic memory. Based on these results, we have proposed that the specificity induction biases participants to adopt a specific retrieval orientation-i.e., to focus on episodic details related to places, people, or actions-and that this heightened focus on episodic details impacts performance on tasks that involve constructing mental events or scenes containing details like those emphasized during the specificity induction (6).…”

Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

“…83). It thus can be adaptive to simulate anticipated events, particularly if they are deemed to be controllable (84)(85)(86). With the described procedure, it will be possible to assess the relative benefits of suppressing versus imagining and to determine how their efficacy varies with features of the dreaded situation and with participants' abilities.…”

Episodic future thinking: mechanisms and functions

“…Recent evidence indicates that administering the ESI procedure described earlier just before individuals simulate possible solutions to personally worrisome future events has beneficial effects on emotion regulation: following ESI versus a control induction, participants generated more constructive steps to address a future worrisome event, were better able to reappraise the event, and showed improvements on several measures of subjective well-being (85). However, other evidence indicates that it can also be beneficial to instead s uppress simulations of events that people fear may happen in their life (86): such suppression caused forgetting of details typically associated with the dreaded events, hindered the ability to subsequently imagine the events and, critically, also reduced apprehensiveness.…”

“…Emotion regulation . Imagining possible positive outcomes related to a worrisome event reduces anxiety about that event (85). Prospective memory .…”