Abstract
Individuals’ recall of past emotions is often biased. Previous studies have focused on personality dispositions as predictors of such bias, but not yet on event-level (within-person) predictors (beyond the valence of emotions). We investigated whether personally more relevant events and higher momentary clarity of the elicited emotions yield less recall bias. To indicate emotional clarity, we used a response-time-based measure. We also examined whether extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness would predict between-person differences in recall bias. The results of an experience sampling study (534 events nested in 72 individuals) showed that, on average, positive emotions were retrospectively overestimated, whereas negative emotions were recalled more accurately. Multilevel models revealed that negative emotions were overestimated for events characterized by lower personal relevance and lower momentary emotional clarity. On the person level, higher conscientiousness was related to a smaller recall bias for positive and negative emotions. The findings suggest that the accuracy of retrospective judgments of emotions varies systematically both within and between persons.
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Notes
Some data from the present study were already used in Arndt et al. (2018). The only measure that was used in both articles (with a different focus) was the RT-based EC measure.
Before computing the median across setting items, RT outliers (larger than interindividual M + 3 SDs) were deleted.
Data and R code can be downloaded from the OSF (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SDNYF).
A model that included both positive and negative emotions revealed a significant mean difference between the recall bias of positive emotions and the recall bias of negative emotions (B = 0.17, t = 3.62, p < .001).
The time lag between the event and the initial report during the ESM part was unrelated to the recall bias (positive events: B = -0.04, t = -1.42, p = .161; negative events: B = 0.005, t = 0.22, p = .827). Moreover, there was no relation between the number of to-be-recalled events and the degree of recall bias (positive emotions: r = .05, p = .701; negative emotions: r = .13, p = .292).
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Ottenstein, C., Lischetzke, T. Recall bias in emotional intensity ratings: investigating person-level and event-level predictors. Motiv Emot 44, 464–473 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09796-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09796-4