{"id":4364,"date":"2018-04-26T23:36:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T03:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=4364"},"modified":"2020-02-07T11:29:40","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T16:29:40","slug":"rosy-retrospection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2018\/04\/26\/rosy-retrospection\/","title":{"rendered":"Take off the rose-tinted glasses: Rosy retrospection and the fallibility of memory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever binge-watched <em>The Office, <\/em>you probably remember the moment in the series finale when Andy Bernard reflects on his days at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Thinking back on his past \u2013 on the friends he made and the fun times he had \u2013 he says, \u201cI wish there was a way to know you\u2019re in the good old days before you\u2019ve actually left them.\u201d Is he right? At the moment he said it, was Andy living in the \u201cgood old days?\u201d Why will he be able to think back on that moment as if it were the \u201cgood old days\u201d if he can\u2019t see it right now? Five years from now, will <em>we<\/em> be looking back on 2018 like it was the \u201cgood old days?\u201d Cognitive psychology has an answer: yes.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andy Bernard - Greatest Line Ever - The Office Series Finale\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sJK4eZgKMd4?start=4&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Allow me to explain: we often tend to remember and recollect past events in a more favorable light than when they actually occur. This is called rosy retrospection \u2013 have you ever heard of the idiom \u201cto see through rose-tinted glasses?\u201d It refers to the tendency to see something in a positive light, often better than it actually is. This memory bias applies to all of us \u2013 and it explains why we often recall the past much more fondly than the present. More generally, rosy retrospection represents one example of the way memory is not as accurate or reliable as we would like to believe. Memory is surprisingly fallible.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So when Andy Bernard, ten years after the series finale, is looking back on his time in Scranton, he most likely <em>will <\/em>be remembering it all as \u201cthe good old days.\u201d He probably didn\u2019t realize it sooner because <em>while<\/em> he was living in that moment, those <em>weren\u2019t <\/em>the good old days. Why, then will he perceive them as such sometime in the future? Rosy retrospection! He is tricking himself into believing that time in Scranton is better than it actually was.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/web.mit.edu\/curhan\/www\/docs\/Articles\/biases\/Book_Chapter_Theory_of_Temporal_Adjustments.pdf\">Mitchell and Thompson (1994)<\/a>&nbsp;first described this phenomenon over two decades ago, proposing a three-stage evaluation of events that leads to this so-called \u201crosy\u201d phenomenon. The first \u2013 rosy projection \u2013 involves anticipating events more positively than they will be. In other words, if you\u2019re really looking forward to something, you\u2019re more likely to falsely remember it as being more positive after the event. The second stage \u2013 dampening \u2013 involves minimizing the pleasure of current experiences (compared to past ones). Rosy projection and dampening increase your likelihood of engaging in the third and final stage, which is \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 rosy retrospection. You\u2019re especially prone to this when an event is a positive one, you\u2019re personally involved, or the event is self-contained (self-contained meaning that the event doesn\u2019t have any important consequences that might possibly affect the way we remember it in the future. For example, imagine you\u2019re taking an important test and the results will affect your admission into graduate school). Research by <a href=\"http:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/1997-43424-002\">Walker, Vogl, and Thompson (1997) supports this. <\/a>They showed that judgments of unpleasantness of an event become less extreme as time intervals increase. Walker et al. (1997) also showed that people were better at remembering pleasant events than unpleasant ones. Ultimately, these results suggest that the emotional intensity of a specific event affects how we remember it later \u2013 positive (pleasant) events are more likely than unpleasant events to be retained in memory, and we are more likely to <em>reconstruct<\/em> them as being more pleasant than they actually were. Once again, this we\u2019re tricking ourselves into believing that we enjoyed past events more than we actually did, demonstrating how inaccurate memories can be.<\/p>\n<p>When we say that memory is a reconstructive process, we mean that every time we think about an event from the past, we don\u2019t \u201creplay\u201d it in our mind exactly as it happened. Instead, we recreate it, relying not only on what we can remember about what actually happened, but also on general knowledge, expectations, beliefs, or assumptions. These reconstructive processes associated with memory retrieval often lead to errors of distortion \u2013 we alter them to the point that they are no longer accurate (<a href=\"http:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/1990-98254-014\">Johnson and Sherman, 1990<\/a>). As much as we would like to believe that our memory is perfect, it is actually <em>very <\/em>flawed. The <a href=\"http:\/\/develintel.blogspot.com\/2006\/05\/seven-sins-of-memory.html\">seven sins of memory<\/a> refer to seven features of human memory that lead our memory to malfunction&nbsp;(Schacter, 2001). One of the sins, bias, may help to account for rosy retrospection. &nbsp;Bias refers to the fact that our current feelings, experiences, and knowledge may affect how we remember previous events. Taking into account the fact that we may feel positively about something in general \u2013 i.e. we may think of the idea of going to college in a generally positive light \u2013 it is important to recognize that these general feelings and attitudes toward an event may affect later memory, even if our own experiences were not quite as great as we thought they were going to be. And the<a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2018\/04\/25\/alls-well-that-ends-well-at-least-thats-what-your-mind-thinks\/\"> peak-end rule,<\/a> another cognitive bias, suggests that instead of evaluating an experience based on overall satisfaction, we tend to form our opinions based on an average of how we felt at the most intense moment (the peak) and at the end. In other words, one really good peak moment may color our memory of an entire event, even if the rest of it was subpar. This, too, may explain why we may recall a particularly dull event as having been more exciting overall. It only takes one exciting moment to change our memory, and rosy retrospection only enhances this effect!<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s try another example of rosy retrospection: close your eyes and think about the last time you went on vacation. What are you picturing? If you\u2019re like most people, you\u2019re probably remembering relaxing trips to the beach, the delicious food you ate at that restaurant you\u2019d wanted to try since the moment you read the reviews, or the fun you had at the amusement park with your friends. But what about when your little siblings kicked sand into your lunch, the food poisoning from accidentally drinking the tap water, or the hour-long wait just to ride <em>one <\/em>rollercoaster? You forgot about those, didn\u2019t you? Once again, you can blame rosy retrospection. <a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2018\/04\/26\/heres-a-suggestion-dont-trust-your-false-memory\/#more-4141\">Memory is a pretty scary thing.<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4370\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4370\" class=\"wp-image-4370\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture1-580x387.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture1-580x387.png 580w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture1-768x513.png 768w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture1.png 839w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If you go at the right (or wrong) time, it can take hours to get to the front of the line at Disneyland. But as time goes on, people are likely to replace this memory with a more positive one. Source: WDWMagic.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>One study showed that when vacationers were asked to rate their vacations shortly after returning, and again a few months later, participants gave significantly higher ratings the second time around. Why? &nbsp;Their expectations and beliefs regarding what would, to most people, be a positive event, influenced the way in which they reconstructed their memories of their vacations (<a href=\"https:\/\/ac.els-cdn.com\/S0022103197913330\/1-s2.0-S0022103197913330-main.pdf?_tid=7e693345-49a8-42e1-97a0-82841e5b6360&amp;acdnat=1524799746_dc2de7e9002f58571610034c9f7392af\">Mitchell et al., 1997<\/a>) In the same study, cyclists recalled a three week tour of California positively after time had passed, despite the fact that they struggled through rain and exhaustion while they were on the trip. And <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/105649269214002\">Sutton (1992)<\/a> showed that people who recently returned from a Disneyland vacation tend to pick only the best photos when recalling their trip to others, explaining the \u201cphoto-reconstructed\u201d memories of the most positive events.&nbsp;After all, Disney is supposed to be, \u201cThe Happiest Place on Earth.\u201d&nbsp;So yeah, memory is fallible \u2013 but maybe it\u2019s not such a bad thing in situations like these.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4375\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture2-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4375\" class=\"wp-image-4375\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture2-1-580x325.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture2-1-580x325.png 580w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture2-1-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2018\/04\/Picture2-1.png 835w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4375\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Disneyland: The Happiest Place on Earth. But is it really? Source: Disneyland.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So now that you are aware of rosy retrospection and the fallibility of memory, you might notice yourself falling victim to it in everyday life. Memory may be generally unreliable, but rosy retrospection isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing \u2013 Mitchell and Thompson (1994) showed that positively-biased memories, such as the ones created by rosy retrospection, can help people avoid depression. Still, you should be careful on relying too much on your memories \u2013 forgetting the negative aspects of different experiences may lead you to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. But on the bright side, the next time you catch yourself longing for the good old days, you\u2019ll be able to smile \u2013 because after all, ten years from now, maybe you\u2019ll be wishing it was 2018 all over again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, M.K., &amp; Sherman, S.J. (1990). Constructing and reconstructing the past and the future&nbsp;in the present. In E.G. Higgins &amp; R.M. Sorrentino (Eds.), <em>Handbook of motivation and <\/em><em>cognition: Foundations of social behavior <\/em>(Vol 2, pp. 482-526). New York: Guilford Press.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell, T.R., &amp; Thompson, L. (1994). A theory of temporal adjustments of the evaluation of&nbsp;events: Rosy prospection &amp; rosy retrospection. <em>Advances in Managerial Cognition and <\/em><em>Organizational Information Processing, 5, <\/em>85-114.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell, T.R., Thompson, L., Peterson. E., &amp; Cronk, R. (1997). Temporal adjustments in the&nbsp;evaluation of events: The \u201crosy view.\u201d <em>Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, <\/em>421-448.&nbsp;doi: 10.1006\/jesp.1997.1333<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Schacter, D. (2001). <em>The seven sins of memory: How the mind forgets and remembers.<\/em> New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sutton, R.I. (1992). Feelings about a Disneyland visit: Photographs and reconstruction of bygone&nbsp;emotions. <em>Journal of Management Inquiry, 1, <\/em>278-287. doi: 10.1177\/105649269214002<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Walker, W. R., Vogl, R.J., &amp; Thompson, C. P. (1997). Autobiographical memory:&nbsp;Unpleasantness fades faster than pleasantness over time. <em>Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, <\/em>399-413. doi: 0022-1031\/97<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever binge-watched The Office, you probably remember the moment in the series finale when Andy Bernard reflects on his days at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Thinking back on his past \u2013 on the friends he made and the fun times he had \u2013 he says, \u201cI wish there was a way to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7695,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[266316,80215],"tags":[112,130400,266291],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7695"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4364"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4676,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4364\/revisions\/4676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}