New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

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New Ideas in Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych

Episodic memories as proxy or independent representations: A theoreticalreview and an empirical test of distinct episodic memories onwork outcomesFrederick L. Philippe
Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montreal, PO Box 8888, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3P8, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Episodic memory
Conceptual self
Autobiographical knowledge base
Memory system
Need satisfaction
Work

Prevailing views on the role of episodic memories have mostly underscored how memories are bound by theconceptual self upon memory retrieval (memories-as-proxy hypothesis). However, there has been much lessfocus on how episodic memories can remain independent of the conceptual self (memories-as-independentrepresentations hypothesis). This is highly relevant for the understanding of the mechanistic of how memories
can guide actions, behaviors, and key outcomes, independently of the conceptual self. In this article, I describe
new ideas and existing ones that have received less attention in the literature to support this latter hypothesis. An
empirical covariance-based study also contrasted these two hypotheses by assessing two memories relative to thework domain and examined how they can each uniquely be associated with key work outcomes (motivation,
burnout, turnover intentions), independently of self-conceptual measures. Results supported the view of mem­ories as independent representations and I suggest future research avenues for this under-investigatedperspective.

The role of episodic memories in orienting behavior, well-being, andkey life outcomes such as adjustment in romantic relationships or atwork has remained mostly unexplored. This is potentially due to a lackof theory explaining how episodic memories can have a directive, butalso specific and unique effect on such outcomes—an effect that canoperate independently of the conceptual self (Kuwabara & Pillemer,2010). Indeed, several prevailing theories on episodic and autobio­
graphical memory mostly focus on describing how the conceptual self
represents the boundaries through which the recall of episodic andautobiographical memories occurs. Memories therefore reflect theconstruction of the self. This mainly implies that episodic memories are,at best, at the service of the conceptual self and do not have much of arole other than serving the self by providing event-specific knowledge(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Here I describe new ideas and un­
derscore recent theoretical suggestions that may have received lessattention in the field of memory to highlight the many ways throughwhich episodic memories can have a directive effect on important life
outcomes independently of the conceptual self. I then tested empiricallythis independence effect in the work domain by investigating in a
covariance-based study how distinct work-related episodic memories
can be associated with key work outcomes such as work motivation,
turnover intentions, and burnout, independently of self-conceptual

measures. This paper detracts a bit from traditional empirical article
in that I present a detailed theoretical review of the various ways thatmemories can direct outcomes prior to presenting the study.
There is now a growing literature on the functions of autobio­
graphical memories, which are typically described in three categories:
self, social, and directive (Pillemer, 1992; Bluck, 2003). These functions,although initially elaborated in the 1990’s, are still extensively used tothis day (e.g., Burnell, Rasmussen, & Garry, 2020; Rasmussen, Rams­
gaard, & Berntsen, 2015). These functions refer to how people use theirautobiographical memories to achieve identity, social and intimacy
outcomes, or to facilitate decision making. However, this literature has
typically focused on how people deliberately and agentically recruit
memories to serve these functions (Kihlstrom, 2009). Little research (butsee Biondolillo & Pillemer, 2015; Kuwabara & Pillemer, 2010; Philippe& Bernard-Desrosiers, 2017) has focused on the nonagentic function ofmemories or on their automatic directive function occurring outside ofawareness (Pillemer, 1992, 2003). The automatic effect of memories
appears to reflect the way the brain analyzes the external environment
rather than the way an individual deliberately recruits particularmemories to serve a specific goal. Stated differently, the present paper isconcerned with how memories are encoded and organized in the brain,
and how they influence behaviors outside of people’s awareness, as

E-mail address: philippe.frederick@uqam.ca.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100913
Received 4 September 2020; Received in revised form 27 August 2021; Accepted 29 August 2021
Available online 3 September 2021
0732-118X/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

F.L. Philippe

New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

opposed to why people remember experiences (Bluck & Alea, 2011).
Given the more automatic and mechanistic focus of the present paper, as
opposed to a deliberate and functional use of memories, this categori­zation of memory functions will not be extensively used here. However,
the main argument of this paper could be subsumed under the automatic
directive function of memories (Pillemer, 1992, 2003).

literature is that they serve to track and update goal progress. Conway
and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) proposed a mental structure they termed theworking self which consists in a complex hierarchy of associated goals
and subgoals similar to what Kruglanski et al. (2002) described as goal
systems. They suggest that memories are mediated by goals from thatsystem. For example, if a person has the goal to find his car back in aparking lots, he will form a mental image of the location of his car.
Conway, Meares, and Standart (2004) proposed that visual imagery of
episodic memories serves to mentally represent information about goals.
As such, the visual imagery of this person’s car in the parking lots withthe relevant contextual information will be formed in episodic memory
to sustain the find-the-car goal (e.g., the shops that are close by, signs
and posts in the parking lots within the area where the car is parked).
These mental representations will be activated and retrieved later when
it will be time to find the car. Once the car is found, the episodic
memories that have been created to sustain the find-the-car goal will bedegraded and new episodic memories will be temporally created to trackprogress (the car has been found). Such progress monitoring andmemory degradation are essential since keeping memories of the carparked without updating them as a function of goal progress would run
the risk of confusing the car owner when his car would be parked in adifferent parking lot at a different time. In other instances, it could
produce repetitive actions (e.g., have I locked my car doors or not?).

1. Prevailing views on the role of episodic memories
I define episodic memories in line with the most accepted definitionin the memory literature, that is, as experience-near representations(sensory, affective, conceptual) of unique past events that are believed
to have been personally experienced (Conway, 2009; Cabeza & St Jac­ques, 2007). These representations are often accompanied by fragmentsof visual images, which when recalled lead to the mental construction ofa scene (Rubin & Umanath, 2015) and a sense of reliving (Tulving,2002). These episodic representations were initially theorized to beprocessed in a repertoire of information existing within separate brain
regions from autobiographical knowledge (Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, &Chance, 2002), that is, personal knowledge such as lifetime periods andgeneral events, but also more generic and cultural semantic knowledge(Conway & Loveday, 2015). In neuropsychological terms, episodic
memories are context-specific and rely on the hippocampus, whereas
autobiographical knowledge is processed by extra-hippocampal
neocortical structures (Winocur, Moscovitch, & Bontempi, 2010).
However, those two repertoires would be in constant interactions,creating temporary and specific patterns of activation (Cabeza & Mos­
covitch, 2013). Some specific patterns of activation over the episodic
memory repertoire and the autobiographical knowledge base can pro­
duce what is called an autobiographical memory (Conway & Loveday,
2015). In contrast, Rubin (2006) proposed that episodic memories are
not confined to a specific repertoire, but are the result of the interactionof multiple basic systems of the brain, mostly corresponding to the fivesenses, but also language, narrative, and emotion and functional sys­tems, such as explicit memory and search-and-retrieval systems. An
autobiographical memory would be the coactivation of the representa­
tions situated in multiple systems, including the visual, emotion, lin­
guistic, narrative, and emotion systems, and coordinated by the explicit
memory and search-and-retrieval systems. Whether the repertoires or
the multiple basic systems theory is used, both theories agree thatcertain episodic information (e.g., visual information) is located in adifferent system (or repertoire) than other type of information (e.g.,semantic or conceptual).
In the present paper, when I will refer to episodic memory, I am
mostly concerned with a past event that is believed to have been
personally experienced, which can be recalled as the mental construc­tion of a scene, which comes with a sense of reliving, and importantly,
which is characterized by records of sensory-perceptual-conceptualaffective processing (Conway, 2009) or, in Rubin’s terms (2006), char­acterized by representations from the basic sensory systems of the brain,
but that may or may not include complex representations from the lin­
guistic, narrative, and explicit memory systems.
There is a consensus in the memory literature regarding the role ofepisodic memories or episodic sensory detail information during delib­
erate recall and in how they can serve to build the conceptual self
(Conway, 2009; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). However, their rolein orienting behavior independently of the conceptual self has beenmostly overlooked. This is the argument I develop in this paper. Here, I
describe several specific roles that episodic memories or episodic com­ponents can have, beginning with the prevailing view and then high­lighting some of their other overlooked effects.

1.2. Episodic memories as providing sensory-near details to conceptual
self-knowledge
Another prevailing perspective is that episodic memories are pre­served for a very short amount of time (hours or days) and that people
quickly lose access to them after that period or memory traces rapidly
degrade (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Some episodic memories
can nonetheless be preserved over a longer period of time if they asso­
ciate with autobiographical knowledge (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce,
2000). Autobiographical knowledge (AK) is constructed of abstract
representations arranged in a hierarchical manner (Conway, Singer, &Tahini, 2004) and contains general events (summary representations ofmultiple similar events), life periods (e.g., high school years), life themes(e.g., work, relationships), and the conceptual self (e.g., traits,
self-schemas, scripts, life stories). When episodic memories link to such
abstract representations contained in AK, episodic memories provide
specificity (context-specific) and sensory details (e.g., emotions andimagery) to the retrieved autobiographical memories (Conway, 2009),
while AK provides the semantic knowledge, schemas, sociocultural
scripts, and coherent meaning with the self.
1.3. The conceptual self as boundaries for episodic memories
It has been suggested that AK constitutes the boundaries of episodic
memories, yielding a delicate balance between correspondence withwhat actually occurred in past events (episodic memories) and coher­
ence with existing AK and the conceptual self (Conway, Singer, & Tagini,2004). Rathbone, Moulin, and Conway (2008) report that people
retrieve episodes of their lives as a function of their self and to support
the self (see also Conway, Meares, & Standart, 2004). Similarly,
particularly emotional and significant memories such as self-defining
memories would be selected as anchor points to represent specificconcerns, self-images, or self-aspects (Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004;
Singer & Salovey, 1993). Thus, AK and the conceptual self would act asboundaries to the retrieval process of episodic memories, such thatpeople would recall memories that reflect and correspond to the current
state of their AK and conceptual self. In other words, retrieved memory
content is constantly tinted by conceptual self-knowledge. For example,
an agentic person will be more likely to retrieve agentic memories,
whereas communal people will tend to recall memories of communion(Woike, Mcleod, & Goggin, 2003). Memories we recall are also thought
to reflect our traits, schemas, attitudes, and other general

1.1. Episodic memories as images facilitating goal progress andmonitoring
A prevailing perspective about episodic memories in the memory2

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New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

self-knowledge from the conceptual self (Markus, 1977). Similarly,
personal life stories are composed of a selection of specific episodic
memories which provide coherence and meaning to a person’s identity
and lifetime development (McAdams, 2001). Moreover, episodic mem­ories would be uniquely selected and even distorted to represent andcorrespond to the person’s actual conceptual self and AK (Conway,
Singer, & Tagini, 2004).

2.2. Episodic memories as AK-Diverging information
Most novel episodic memories that conform to already existing selfknowledge are probably forgotten, since they provide no new informa­tion about the external world and oneself than what has already been
encoded. So critically, what is typically preserved in episodic memory is
initially AK-diverging information. Evidence supports this view. Klein,
Loftus, Trafton, and Fuhrman (1992) showed that only abstract infor­
mation from the conceptual self is required to make trait self-judgments
for contexts in which one has a sufficient amount of experience (e.g., thecontext of university for a senior student). However, episodic memory
information is recruited to make trait self-judgments for contexts inwhich one has little experience (e.g., the context of university for a
freshman). In other words, episodic memories are spontaneously used
when there exists no information yet at the conceptual level (Klein et al.,
2002; Pillemer, 2003). In those circumstances, they are likely to guidebehaviors independently of the conceptual self.
Brown’s transition theory (2016) suggests that repeated common
experiences strengthen schematic information (personal semantic
knowledge) in a Hebbian learning process (i.e., units that fire together
wire together). Conversely, major life transitions signal and create theformation of new sets of schematic information. Strongly emotional
collective or personal events often begin the internalization of new
representations about oneself and the world (e.g., a child birth, a natural
disaster in one’s community) for which there was no prior knowledge toorganize the novel representations. It therefore sets new representa­
tional units around which novel information may be associated to form
new schematic personal knowledge. Transition theory is coherent withthe free energy principle (i.e., active inference, Friston, 2010; Parr &Friston, 2019) and predictive coding (Barron, Auksztulewicz, & Friston,2020) in that when mundane experiences are well predicted by current
internal representations of the self and the world, it does not necessitatechanges to these representations (no prediction error, see the general
discussion for a detailed treatment of this concept). Moreover, adequate
prediction of the mundane (i.e., well-predicted) experiences strengthens
these internal representations. However, novel, surprising, unpredicted,
or uncertain events that could not be well predicted by the current sets ofrepresentations or beliefs often call the person to change his/her priorrepresentations to adapt them to this new understanding of the reality or
new reality. As such, transition events and their episodic memories,
sometimes also called turning points (McAdams, 2001), consist ofimportant AK-diverging information, which can mark the beginning of a
new era of schematic knowledge. During this transition time, such
episodic memories are likely to influence the person’s behavior, inde­
pendently of schematic and self-conceptual information. Moreover,many transitions may not necessarily lead to the construction of sche­matic knowledge, because of the absence of the repetitive nature of theevents (e.g., car accident, robbery, panic attack), which are often trau­
matic in nature. In consequence, these episodic memories may be part ofthe person’s memory, but remain fairly independent of this person’s
explicit schematic or self-conceptual knowledge.

2. Memories as independent representations
Overall, according to the prevailing view, most episodic memories
integrated in long-term memory act as a proxy for conceptual selfknowledge, only providing specificity through situation detail, emo­
tions, and visual imagery and other sensory cues. I label this view the
memories-as-proxy hypothesis, which illustrates a top-down process,where higher conceptual self-knowledge influences lower episodic in­formation, especially within the reconstructive and retrieval process.
According to this hypothesis, memories should not orient behavior
independently of the conceptual self, since they are bound by the self.
However, this perspective is mostly focused on a top-down retrieval
process. It does not address what is sometimes called the directivefunction of memory (Pillemer, 2003), that is, when memories are trig­
gered by external cues by specific situations and enter or not con­sciousness (bottom-up process, Mace & Unlu, 2020). Involuntary or
intrusive memories (Berntsen & Hall, 2004) also relate to this phe­nomenon, although an important characteristic of these types of mem­ory is that they enter consciousness, whereas this may not be necessary
for a directive function to occur (e.g., Kuwabara & Pillemer, 2010). The
prevailing view also does not consider what happens when certain
episodic memories are only weakly embedded in AK or not part at all of
the conceptual self (Winocur et al., 2010). I now describe the memo­
ries-as-independent-representations hypothesis, which posits that mem­ories can influence subjective feelings, behaviors, and outcomes
independently of the conceptual self.
2.1. Episodic memories as information in progress of integration
Episodic memories are thought to be central to knowledge acquisi­
tion, notably self-knowledge, and the development of identity. Knowl­edge would be gradually abstracted from episodic memories and would
become general long-term conceptual self-knowledge, which would
eventually lose its connection with the episodic memories (Conway,2009). However, what has not always been clearly acknowledged is thatit takes time for episodic information to gradually integrate AK and theconceptual self. These memories remain in long-term memory because
they correspond to important goals or concerns for the person, although
they are not yet fully integrated in AK. Conway, Singer, and Tagini(2004) suggest that some episodic memories may take more than two
years to be integrated (see also Linton, 1986). It is probably the case formemories that represent first times, standing-out experiences, or mem­ories that are not schematic of previous experiences or which contradict
an internalized schema (Williams, Conway, & Cohen, 2008). Moreover,the integration of relevant episodic information to AK can be conflictual,and this is perhaps more dramatically illustrated by trauma memories(for clinical illustrations, see Conway, Meares, & Standart, 2004). In lessdramatic cases, these memories are often self-defining memories, whichanchor life issues and aspects core to the person’s personality, self, andintegrative meaning (Blagov & Singer, 2004; Singer & Salovey, 1993).
Yet, they are “in the process” of integrating the conceptual self. Mean­
while, such episodic memories enclose information about the person, but
not yet about his or her self as a stable and integrated entity. When thesememories provide information to guide actions and behavior, they will
operate independently of the stable representations of the conceptual
self.

2.3. Episodic memories as goal-related but not always self-related
The self-memory system theory (SMS) suggests that the hierarchy ofgoals of the working-self mediates the encoding of memories (Conway,
Singer, & Tagini, 2004). This perspective has conceptualized goal sys­
tems as being part of the conceptual self and consequently, goals in the
SMS has mostly been defined as deliberate goals. I argue, however, that
there are more macroscopic and universal goals that compose goal
systems which refer to human innate psychological needs and to whichpeople are naturally oriented. Three psychological needs have consis­
tently been shown to sustain people’s well-being, growth, and health at
all ages (Ryan & Deci, 2017) and across cultures (Tay and Diener, 2011).
These needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy
refers to the need to feel volitional and authentic in one’s actions.
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New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

Competence is defined as the need to feel effective and efficacious.
Relatedness refers to the need to feel connected and cared for by others
and to care for others in turn. In all human experiences and life episodes,
at least one and most often all three needs will be highly featured.
Although people do not necessarily have such goals as explicit goals (e.
g., “I want to satisfy my competence”), they do formulate sub-goals thatindirectly seek to satisfy those needs (e.g., “I want to win that board
game”). Similarly, people do not formulate explicit goals about avoiding
the thwarting of these needs (e.g., “I try to avoid looking like a fool infront of others” or “I try to avoid losing my friends”), but they doconstantly strive for reducing such thwarting and engage in actions
reflecting those goals.
Given the importance of these needs in human life, it seems logicalthat the human goal system is wired to approach experiences that will
satisfy these needs and avoid those associated with their thwarting,regardless of the content of the conceptual self. It would therefore seem
highly adaptive from an evolutionary standpoint for episodic memories
to actively encode situations that satisfy or thwart these needs (Klein
et al., 2002). Episodic memories of life events that have been needsatisfying or need thwarting will therefore keep strong ties with goal
systems and will serve to quickly inform what should be approached andavoided in the environment at a later similar occasion (Dweck, 2017;
Philippe, Koestner, Lecours, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Bois, 2011).1 Research
has indeed shown that need satisfaction is a key goal-affective compo­
nent of memories and one that predict outcomes better than many othermemory characteristics, such as valence, vividness, or significance (e.g.,
Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Lecours, 2011, 2015).
Episodic memories could be initially encoded because they are goalrelevant (notably relevant for the person’s autonomy, competence, andrelatedness), yet they may not necessarily be integrated in AK or con­
ceptual self, even if they keep ties with goal systems. As such, some
episodic memories may remain in long-term memory without becomingstrong descriptors of an individual’s self or identity (i.e., trait selfknowledge). For instance, an episode of interpersonal rejection—
thwarting the need of relatedness—could be encoded as highly goalrelevant and as situations to avoid in the future, without updating
trait self-knowledge (“I am rejectable”) or worldviews (e.g., “people aremean”). These episodes could also be integrated in AK structures, but atdifferent construal levels (Brewin, Gregory, Lipton, & Burgess, 2010;
Stillman et al., 2017). Conway (2009) suggested that episodic memories
that are recalled have a frame, that is, conceptual and semantic
contextualizing knowledge. However, they may not necessarily be in­tegrated in AK, in terms of general events, life period, or in the self.
Moreover, some episodic memories may be integrated in AK as part ofgeneral event representations, or as anchoring a specific life period, yet
without serving as self-descriptors for traits and schemas. As such, somelong-term episodic memories could be recalled, without having any linkwith conceptual self-knowledge, other than a feeling of autonoetic
consciousness (Tulving, 2002) and a mental construction of a scene(Rubin & Umanath, 2015). In all these cases, some long-term episodic
memories would not fully integrate AK or the conceptual self, but would
keep ties with goal systems, potentially because they remain informativein regard of macroscopic human needs and goals. Such episodic mem­ories would therefore contain information that do not overlap withhigher-level representations of the conceptual self.

cases of involuntary recall (Berntsen & Hall, 2004). In most cases, thisactivation occurs outside of people’s awareness (Conway, 2009; Phil­
ippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, Lecours, & Lekes, 2012). This func­tion of memory was initially call the directive function of memory by
Pillemer (1992, 2003). It is mostly based on the associative nature ofmemory (Brewin et al., 2010), such that external cues that match thecontent of an episodic memory will trigger this memory and its
goal-affective information (e.g., its level of need satisfaction), which willserve to orient action and behavior in the situation that triggered thememory (Philippe et al., 2012; Singer & Conway, 2011). Some re­searchers believe that this one of the most basic function of the memory
system and one that is probably common to many animal species (Allen& Fortin, 2013; Berntsen, 2010; Martin-Ordas et al., 2013). The
sensory-based components of episodic memories make it so that they canbe triggered easily again later by external cues, which quickly informthat a similar situation is occurring and direct the type of behavior thatshould be adopted. This function is also at the heart of what has beencalled implicit memory (Schacter, 1987) and of involuntary memory(Bertnsten, 2010; Mace, 2005). However, implicit and involuntary
memory are distinct on at least one important aspect of interest for thepresent article. Involuntary memories have been mostly studied as
conscious involuntary memories, that is memories that comes to mind
spontaneously. Implicit memory is more concerned with informationthat has been once encountered but that cannot be consciously retrieved(Roediger III, 1990). Yet this information remains encoded in memoryand can affect decision and action whenever it is reactivated by externalcues. Overall, however, involuntary memories may only represent theeffect of implicit memories that enter consciousness in certain condi­
tions of diffuse attention.
Implicit memory is probably well illustrated by Claparede’s classicalamnesic patient who refused to shake hands with him after he pricked
her with a pin hidden in his hand, even though she claimed she did notremember meeting him before (Claparède, 1911/1951; see also Kor­
sakoff, 1889). The threatening event had been encoded as an episodic
memory and was guiding the amnesic patient’s action in future similar
situations. However, given her amnesia and incapacity to form frames
and integrate the episodic memory into her AK (or medial prefrontal
cortex), the memory remained inaccessible through conscious reminis­
cence, but the emotional or procedural information could be reactivatedby context-specific cues processed by the hippocampus. This appraisal
function of memory is also well illustrated by Larry L. Jacoby’s work on
the concept of memory as a tool as opposed to memory as an object.
Memories for old words that were presented in a session before (up to
five days before) facilitated the perceptual identification of those words
in tasks in which they were very briefly flashed (Jacoby, 1983). How­ever, it was not necessary for participants to recognize those words as
being learned in a prior session to facilitate their perceptual identifica­tion. Words that were recognized as old facilitated performance in theperceptual identification task as much as words that were not recognized
as old (Jacoby & Witherspoon, 1982). Presumably, conceptual knowl­edge was unnecessary to perform the task, only episodic memory traces.
However, these studies were limited by the fact that using words astargets may not entirely correspond to the full notion of what an episodic
memory is (McDermott, Szpunar, & Christ, 2009). Moreover, the notionthat the memories of the target stimuli are inaccessible to conscious
retrieval is unnecessary to demonstrate that memories can affect be­haviors outside of people’s awareness. Other studies have shown that
activation of real-life episodic memories, that could still be consciously
retrieved, could situationally influence people’s well-being outside of
their awareness. Philippe and colleagues (Philippe et al., 2012; Philippe& Bernard-Desrosiers, 2017) used keywords derived from participants’episodic autobiographical memory description of a specific and signifi­
cant life event to prime them with these keywords outside of theirawareness days later. They found that priming a need satisfying memory
immediately increased situational well-being, whereas priming a needthwarting memory led to decreases in situational well-being, as

2.4. Episodic memories as quick cues for action tendencies
Episodic memories can serve to quickly appraise the external worldand serve basic approach and avoidance actions. When they serve thisfunction, they are rarely accompanied by autonoetic consciousness, time
traveling, or reminiscence experiences (Pillemer, 2003), except in the
1
Other needs and goals related to physical survival (avoidance of death or of
painful experiences) are other probable macroscopic human goals.

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New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

Moreover, they should predict outcomes independently of related selfconceptual measures.

compared to control yoked groups. Although clear effects were found on
well-being, all participants included in the analyses reported not having
seen any words from their memory described in a previous session
during the priming task and none could identify the correct purpose of
the study or even draw a rational parallel between the two testing ses­
sions. Thus, external cues rapidly trigger episodic memories to direct
emotion, decision, action. However, no conscious reminiscence of thisactivation is necessary.
Memories that are frequently used or frequently triggered byexternal cues are expected to have recurrent situational effects, which
over time can build or hinder important personal psychological andsocial resources. Longitudinal studies have shown that need satisfaction
in such memories can predict increases over time in well-being (Philippe
et al., 2012; Philippe & Bernard-Desrosiers, 2017), romantic relation­
ship quality (Philippe, Koestner, & Lekes, 2013), or work satisfaction
and motivation (Philippe, Lopes, Houlfort, & Fernet, 2019), whereas
need thwarting in such memories was shown to lead to relationshipbreakups (Philippe et al., 2013) and burnout (Philippe et al., 2019) overtime.

3.1. Work as a target domain of investigation
A specific single domain was selected to investigate this question to
avoid the alternative explanation that two distinct memories could eachpredict some common outcome because they are from distinct domains
and tap into different self-aspects (e.g.., McConnell et al., 2011). The
domain of work was selected because it is a core area of most people’s
lives affecting their functioning, associated with a realm of emotionaland significant experiences, and with known and well defined andresearched outcomes. Three such outcomes were selected, employee
motivation, burnout, and turnover intentions. Motivation (Gagne et al.,2014) and burnout (Schaufeli, 2017) are two of the most studied aspects
related to work research. Burnout reflects an affective strain reaction to
ongoing stress (Maslach, 1982) whose core content is emotional
exhaustion (Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007). It has been consistently
related to substantial individual and organisational costs (Demerouti,
Bakker, & Leiter, 2014; Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007; Riketta, 2008),
making it a particularly important outcome of work research. Motiva­tion was assessed from a self-determination theory perspective, one of
the most used perspective on motivation in the workplace (Deci et al.,2016) and one for which scales with strong evidence of validity andreliability exist (e.g., Gagne et al., 2014; Tremblay, Blanchard, Taylor,
Pelletier, & Villeneuve, 2009). Finally, turnovers have been a long-timestudied issue, one with important consequences for organizations (e.g.,
Staw, 1980).

3. The present research
When episodic memories are bound by the conceptual self, theircontent reflects the self. What can be retrieved as an episodic memory
through deliberate recall is necessarily anchored to a representation of
the conceptual self and these self-representations will shape and taintthe content of the episodic autobiographical memory retrieved. As such,the information contained in memories should not predict personal
outcomes that is not already predicted by conceptual self-knowledge.
Moreover, memories retrieved for a common theme or domain would
be likely to contain similar information since they are bound by the sameself-conceptual domain.
When episodic memories represent independent cognitive repre­
sentations, there is an important distinction to draw between the I andthe self. An episodic memory will most of the time be accompanied bythis autonoetic consciousness of the I (Wheeler, Stuss, & Tulving, 1997).
Nevertheless, each episodic memory does not necessarily overlap withthe self in the form of trait self-knowledge or as descriptors of the self.
One can recall having perform a certain action, but this action may or
may not represent his/her self. In other words, one would not
self-describe him/herself as a function of this action. In psychology,
most measures are obtained through self-reports, which almost always
target trait self-knowledge and general self-perceptions. These measuresreflect the conceptual self. However, as illustrated in the Introduction,
many episodic memories may not be fully integrated in AK and may notdescribe an individual’s conceptual self, while still influencing his/her
subjective feelings, actions, and behavior through their goal-affective
components (e.g., level of need satisfaction).
One way to test the memories-as-proxy hypothesis is by pitting two
memories against each other in a covariance-based analysis. When
predicting a key outcome (e.g., burnout), if the two memories arecorrelated and their predictive effect cancels each other or that only one
memory remains a significant predictor of the outcome, then this pro­vides evidence that memories represent a more general person-levelvariable. Indeed, this would show that information contained in one
memory is redundant with the information contained in another mem­
ory, as both correspond to information represented at the level of theconceptual self. Moreover, the predictive variance of these memories
should overlap with related self-conceptual measures.
The memories-as-independent-representations hypothesis stipulates
that each memory is fairly independent of one another and therefore
each can have a unique effect on outcomes as a function of its level ofneed satisfaction. It is therefore expected under this hypothesis that eachmemory would predict an independent and unique portion of variancein outcomes. There should also be a weak or non-significant correlation
between the levels of need satisfaction of the two different memories.

3.2. Hypotheses
The memories-as-proxy hypothesis would predict that:
1) Need satisfaction in each of two work-related memories should be atleast moderately or strongly positively associated.
2) Need satisfaction in one work-related memory should be associatedwith employee motivation, burnout, and turnover intentions, but asecond work-related memory should not predict additional variancein these outcomes (or vice versa).
3) Need satisfaction in work-related memories should be at least
moderately or strongly associated with need satisfaction experienced
at work in general (a self-conceptual measure) and these memories
should not account for variance in outcomes after controlling for thislatter variable.
The memories-as-independent-representations hypothesis would
predict that:
1) Need satisfaction in each of two work-related memories should be
uncorrelated or weakly positively correlated since they correspondto two independent episodic experiences.
2) Need satisfaction in a work-related memory should be associatedwith employee motivation, burnout, and turnover intentions, and asecond work-related memory should predict additional variance inthese outcomes, over and above the variance accounted by the firstmemory.
3) Need satisfaction in work-related memories should predict variancein outcomes, even after controlling for need satisfaction experienced
at work in general (a self-conceptual measure).
Note that supporting evidence for the memories-as-representations
hypothesis would not invalidate the memories-as-proxy hypothesis.
There is ample evidence for the existence of top-down processes ofmemory (see Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). However, thememories-as-representations hypothesis specifies that there are also
important bottom-up and heterarchical processes (i.e., memories
5F.L. Philippe

New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

affecting outcomes independently of higher-level self-knowledge) that
can affect key outcomes in people’s lives independently of the organi­zation of their conceptual self (Milyavskaya, Philippe, & Koestner,2013). For this, there is very little evidence.

time and this event added an extra stress to my work.”
Work need satisfaction. The 18-item Work-Related Basic Need
Satisfaction scale (Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, Soenens, &Lens, 2010) was used to measure the three psychological needs of au­
tonomy, competence, and relatedness as experienced at work in general.
A sample item assessing relatedness is “At work, I feel part of a group”,
an item measuring competence is “I really master my tasks at my job”,
and an item tapping into autonomy is “The tasks I have to do at work arein line with what I really want to do.” These items measure need satis­
faction at work at the conceptual level of the self and are distinct fromthe assessment of need satisfaction in a specific work episode, as
explained in the work-related memory measure presented above. An
index averaging all three needs at work was computed, as it is commonly
done by self-determination theory researchers (see Ryan & Deci, 2017).
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this index was 0.85. All items of thisscale and of the scales presented below were responded to on a 7-point
Likert scale.
Self-determined motivation at work. The Work Extrinsic andIntrinsic Motivation scale (WEIMS; Tremblay et al., 2009) was used tomeasure self-determined motivation at work. This scale assesses six
forms of motivation with three items each, along a continuum of
self-determination: intrinsic motivation (e.g., “I do this work … because
I derive much pleasure from learning new things”), integrated motiva­tion (e.g., “… because it has become a fundamental part of who I am”),
identified regulation (e.g., “… because I chose this type of work to attainmy career goals”), introjected regulation (e.g., “… because I want to be awinner in life”), external regulation (e.g., “… for the income it providesme”), and amotivation (e.g., “I don’t know, too much is expected of us”).
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of each subscale were all >0.70. A
weighting algorithm is typically applied to the scale (Ryan & Deci, 2017;
Sheldon, Osin, Gordeeva, Suchkov, & Sychev, 2017) to reflect thetheoretical continuum of self-determination: (intrinsic*3) + (inte­
grated*2) + (identified*1) – (introjected*1) - (external*2) (amotivation*3).
Burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (BMI; Maslach, Jackson, &Leiter, 1996) was used to measure burnout. In this study, the 8-item
emotional exhaustion subscale was used, as it is generally considered
the hallmark of burnout (e.g., Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007; Piko, 2006).
A sample item is “I feel emotionally drained from my work”. Alpha inthis study was 0.91.
Turnover intentions. Three items from past research (Michaels &Spector, 1982) were used to measure turnover intentions (e.g., “I seri­
ously consider quitting my job”). They were measure on a 1 (do not agree
at all) to 5 (totally agree) Likert scale and dichotomized in two groups as
to whether employees responded having no intention at all of turningover (scoring 1 on all items) or some intentions (scoring at least 2 on atleast one item). This statistical transformation is often performed on
employee turnover intention measures due to the typical left-skewed
distribution of this variable (e.g., Gaudenz, De Geest, Schwendimann,& Zúñiga, 2017; Tham, 2007). Alpha was. 85.

4. Method
Participants. A power analysis revealed that a sample of 101 par­ticipants was needed to detect small to medium effect sizes in R2 in­crease (0.07) using two or more predictors in multiple regression
analyses. Accordingly, 106 workers (65.1% females) were recruited totake part in this study. Workers were employees of Cegep organizationsin Quebec, Canada (similar to American colleges). Types of employee
included administrative support staff (35%), professionals (25%),
teachers (37%), and executives (3%). They were aged 42.33 years on
average (SD = 11.83), worked on average 36.39 h per week (SD = 5.91),
and had 12.90 years of experience in their current job (SD = 10.22).
4.1. Measures
Work-related memories. Instructions were derived from past
research on self-defining memories (Singer & Salovey, 1993) and related
research (Sutin & Robins, 2005; Philippe et al., 2019). Participants wereasked to describe in detail two memories related to their work. They
were told that they could describe memories related to their choice,orientation, or reorientation of career or any other significant memory
related to their work. The chosen memories had to be at least threemonths old to ensure that the memories were not recalled because of a
recency effect—thereby increasing the likelihood that the memories
were significant and important for the participants rather than justrecent. Next, participants were asked to rate the level of need satisfac­
tion they experienced during the event of each of their work memories.
Past research has shown that need satisfaction in memory is a better
predictor than valence, emotions, and many other memory character­istics (see Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Lecours, 2011,2015). Past research (Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Lecours,
2011, Study 1) has also shown a large correlation (r = 0.70) between
need satisfaction in memory as rated by the participants themselves andas coded by independent judges from memory narratives. Therefore,
participants’ ratings were used. Two items assessed each of the threeneeds (Philippe, Koestner, Beaulieu-Pelletier, & Lecours, 2011): “I felt
free to do things and to think how I wanted” (autonomy), “I felt
competent or capable” (competence), and “I felt connected to one ormore people” (relatedness). Participants indicated their degree ofagreement with each item, on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from − 3(Strongly disagree) to +3 (Strongly agree), with 0 representing do notagree nor disagree or not applicable. Per definition, a score above zero
represents a need satisfying memory, whereas a score of zero or below
represents a need thwarting memory. An index representing the level ofneed satisfaction in each work-related memory was computed by aver­aging item scores for each memory separately. Cronbach’s alpha coef­
ficient for this index was 0.80 and 0.88 for the first and second
memories, respectively.
Excerpt of a need satisfying memory (>0 on the scale of memoryneed satisfaction):“When my boss learned that I that I got tenure, she bought mecandies, and with another colleague, they put these all over my desk
before I arrive in the morning. And all people from my department came
to congratulate me.”Excerpt of a need thwarting memory (≤ 0 on the scale of memoryneed satisfaction):“A colleague confronted me aggressively because I had talked about
one of her students during lunch time in front of other colleagues. This
student was angry against my colleague and I wanted to let her know
about this. She really did not like that I do it in front of other colleagues
and she yelled at me just before I get into class. I was evaluated at that

4.2. Procedures
Participants were contacted by email by their institution and invited
to take part in an online study on quality of work life. We made sure thatparticipants were not pressured by their institution to respond to thequestionnaire and that no superiors or other employees would haveaccessed to their data. All participants were francophone, and all scales
were in French. Importantly, participants completed all outcome mea­sures before describing their memories and rating them for need satis­
faction. Research has shown that this order should be prioritized, giventhat describing memories first is likely to bias the subsequent completionof outcome scales, whereas the opposite (outcome scales first andmemories after) does not appear to bias the type of memories selected(Philippe, Bouizegarene, Guilbault, Rajotte, & Houle, 2015). Uponcompleting the questionnaire, Participants were entered into a draw for6

F.L. Philippe

New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

three prizes of $125 CAD. This study was performed in line with theprinciples of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the
Ethics Committee of the University of Quebec at Montreal.

Table 2
Hierarchical multiple regressions of work outcomes on need satisfaction in two
distinct work-related memories.
Variables

5. Results
Table 1 reports the means, standard deviations, and correlations
among all study variables. These results revealed that, on average,
participants tended to report need satisfying work-related memories(score higher than 0 on the scale). However, for both memories, thestandard deviations were high, implying that a sizeable number ofparticipants also reported need thwarting memories. Indeed, descriptive
results further showed that 54.7% of the participants reported two needsatisfying memories (need satisfaction scores higher than 0 on both
memories), 22.6% reported a need satisfying memory first and a needthwarting memory second, 14.2% a need thwarting memory first and aneed satisfying memory second, and 8.5% reported two need thwarting
memories. Overall, reporting a need satisfying or need thwarting
memories first or second was not related to the outcomes. Thus, theorder in which the memories were reported will not be further
considered.
Results also showed that need satisfaction in each memory were notsignificantly correlated. They were, however, both significantly corre­
lated with need satisfaction at work in general. Need satisfaction in both
memories were also significantly associated with the work outcomes inthe expected direction.
A first set of hierarchical multiple regressions was first conducted to
examine whether need satisfaction in the second memory would
contribute to predict a portion of variance in the work outcomes over
and above need satisfaction in the first memory. Need satisfaction in thefirst memory was therefore entered at Step 1 and need satisfaction in thesecond memory at Step 2, and both were regressed on each work
outcome separately (self-determined motivation, burnout, and turnover
intentions). Table 2 reports these results. Overall, results revealed thatneed satisfaction in the first memory was significantly and positively
associated with self-determined motivation and negatively associatedwith burnout and turnover intentions. Moreover, need satisfaction in thesecond memory accounted for a significant portion of variance in each ofthese outcomes, over and above need satisfaction in the first memory.
Both memories accounted together between 10% and 17% in eachoutcome. In all cases, both memories were significantly associated withthe work outcomes when entered together at Step 2.
Results as depicted in Table 2 may appear to indicate that the firstmemory explains more variance than the second memory. However, thisis due to regressions cancelling out shared variance among the twomemories variables. If the memories are entered in a reverse order(second memory first and first memory second), they predict 6% and 5%of self-determined motivation, 6% and 8% of burnout, and 8% and 9% of
turnover intentions, respectively. Thus, the contribution of each mem­ory to the work outcomes appears to be quite equivalent. The only

Needsatisfaction
in first
workmemory

Needsatisfaction
in second
workmemory

M

SD

1

2

3

4

Need satisfaction
in memory 1
Need satisfaction
in memory 2
Need satisfaction
at work
Self-determined
motivation at
work
Burnout
Turnoverintentions

1.14

1.40

–

0.92

1.64

.17

–

5.48

0.75

.46**

.25**

–

7.51

4.43

.25**

.24*

.40**

–

2.81
0.74

1.26
0.44

-.32**-.32**-.25**-.28**-.42**-.53**-.24*-.51**

Step 1
F(1,
104)/
χ2(1)
R2

Step 2
F(1,
103)/
χ2(1)
R2

Selfdetermined
motivation

Burnout

Turnoverintentions†

Work needsatisfaction

β = .25**

β=− .32**

B = − .70**

β = .46**

6.95**

11.81**

12.86**

28.51**.06
β = .20*.10
β=− .20*.11
B = − .44*.22
β = .17*

4.62*

4.65*

7.44**

4.01*

.04

.04

.06

.03

Note. *p < .05, **p < .01.
†A hierarchical logistic multiple regression was used given the dichotomous
nature of the turnover dependent variable and step Chi-square and Cox and Snell
R2 are reported for this regression. Reported beta coefficients are unstandardized
for turnover intentions, but standardized for the other work outcomes.

unbalanced case was for need satisfaction at work, of which the secondand first memory explained 6% and 18%, respectively.
An alternative explanation for the above results could be that one
memory may tap into a specific work goal and the second memory
represents another distinct work goal. Thus, both memories could
independently predict work outcomes, because each of these two goals
have distinct consequences for work outcomes. For example, one
memory could be about satisfying one’s need of autonomy by illus­
trating how an employee’s work provides him/her with opportunities
whereas the second memory could be about satisfying relatedness,
exemplifying how one gets along well with his/her colleagues. Given
that the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are macro­scopic human needs, which are intimately related to goals, each need
could be linked to a specific memory in a particular domain such as
work. To investigate this issue, the score of each need in the firstmemory was entered at Step 1 and the score for the same need in thesecond memory was entered at Step 2. These variables were regressed oneach work outcome in separate regressions. Results revealed that eachneed in the second memory contributed to additional variance in theprediction of each work outcome (at least at p < .10), over and above thesame need in the first memory. This was true for either autonomy,competence, or relatedness. The only exception was that competence inboth memories was not significantly associated with self-determined
motivation. Thus, overall, these results suggest that need satisfactionin each memory uniquely impacts work outcomes.
A second set of hierarchical multiple regressions was conducted to
examine whether need satisfaction in the work-related memories would
still predict the work outcomes after controlling for need satisfaction atwork at the conceptual level and for other common demographics.
Correlational results revealed that age and years of experience werehighly associated (r = 0.72), as well as type of employment and edu­
cation, F(3, 102) = 9.89, 23% of common variance). To avoid collin­
earity, the demographics that were the most correlated with theoutcomes were preserved for the analyses, that is, age and education.
Number of working hours per week and sex were also controlled for.
These demographics were entered at Step 1 and need satisfaction atwork in general was entered at Step 2. The two memories wereTable 1Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables.
Variables

Steps

5

–
.20*

Note. *p < .05, **p < .01.
7

F.L. Philippe

New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

dissociated from both semantic and conceptual knowledge and goal
structures. Within the framework of Rubin and Umanath (2015), suchmemories would be event memories that can be recalled with a mental
construction of a scene, and that may be integrated or not at different
levels of the self, but typically not in high-level representations of theconceptual self. This implies a heterarchical structure where episodic
memories (or event memories) participate in developing higher levelstructures (autobiographical knowledge and conceptual self), but also
remain fairly independent of those structures and can have unique in­fluence on behavior, decision making, and outcomes (Milyavskaya et al.,2013). This can be contrasted to a stricter hierarchical perspective
where all structures at the bottom of the hierarchy are fully subsumed
under the upper levels and only participate in building the upper more
abstract levels (Berntson & Cacioppo, 2008).
The present research provides evidence supporting the memories-asindependent-representations hypothesis. Results showed that informa­tion contained in each of two distinct memories from the work domain
was uniquely and independently associated with key work outcomes.
Moreover, information in these memories were only moderately asso­
ciated with a related self-conceptual measure and the association be­
tween these memories and the work outcomes remained significant after
controlling for that self-conceptual measure and other demographic
variables. The fact that episodic memories can have heterarchical effecton outcomes, independent of self-conceptual measures, does not inval­
idate the memories-as-proxy hypothesis. There are many top-down
processes, and these have been vastly studied in the memory litera­ture. There are also essential bottom-up processes that incorporate
episodic memories into the conceptual system. For instance, thinking
about one’s memories in a self-referential manner will activate pre­frontal regions associated with autobiographical reasoning (D’Argem­
beau et al., 2014), which will help to organize these life episodes in a
coherent manner and forge key life stories (McAdams, 2001). However,the present findings highlight the necessity of developing a less rigid
conceptualization of how episodic memories relate to AK and to theconceptual self and of allowing for some independence in how theepisodic and AK repertoires relates to one another (Winocur et al.,2010). For instance, Conway (2009) reports that episodic memories arelost quickly unless they become integrated with AK and the conceptual
system. The memories-as-independent-representations perspective un­derscores that this structural organization might be too restrictive andthat episodic memories may remain accessible and functional even when
they are not fully integrated in the conceptual system (Rubin, 2006;
Winocur et al., 2010).
In developing such a distinct model, it seems useful to conceptualize(Rasmussen et al., 2015) goal structures as related, but relatively inde­
pendent of the conceptual self, which could allow for some episodic
memories to remain associated with goal structures through macro­scopic goals (i.e., innate needs), while not being integrated or only
partially integrated into the conceptual self. Similarly, episodic mem­ories that remain accessible without being fully integrated into theconceptual system could be conceptualized as AK-diverging informa­tion. In that sense, episodic memory may serve a prediction error
function (e.g., Sinclair & Barense, 2018) or a surprisal reduction func­tion (Friston, 2010). Such a function has been identified in certain brain
regions, such as the striatum, which is activated when there is a pre­diction error about a particular rewarding stimulus (Diederen, Spencer,
Vestergaard, Fletcher, & Schultz, 2016). When, for instance, stimuli A,
which has been learned to be rewarding, stops providing reward orprovides a lower reward than expected, the striatum will trigger a pre­diction error, that is, it signals a change in the external environment that
may require a new adaptive behavior or an update of encoded condi­
tional rules. When stimuli A, which has been learned to deliver a reward
does actually deliver one, the striatum remains silent, as the prediction iscorrect. Episodic memories may play such a role by specifically encoding
events that are relevant to the person’s goal system but that diverge frominformation already stored in the AK and conceptual self.

combined into a single score and entered at Step 2 to examine thecontribution of need satisfaction in work-related memories over andabove demographics and need satisfaction at work in general.
Results of these regressions are shown in Table 3. As can be seen,need satisfaction at work accounted for a substantial portion of variancein all three work outcomes, but need satisfaction in the work-related
memories accounted for a significant percentage of variance in theseoutcomes, over and above the demographics and need satisfaction atwork (see Table 3). Finally, we also re-analyzed the data while con­trolling for self-determined motivation, given that this variable has often
been modelized as a predictor of outcomes such as burnout and turnover
intentions (e.g., Fernet, Austin, & Vallerand, 2012; Gillet, Gagné,Sauvagère, & Fouquereau, 2013). Results remained unchanged, there­
fore confirming that although memories predict self-determined moti­
vation at work, they are not a proxy for this variable. Overall, thesefindings suggest that need satisfaction measured at the episodic level
does not fully overlap with information at the conceptual level of the self
and predicts variance in important work outcomes that is not capturedby this conceptual level.
6. General discussion
The purpose of the present research was to compare two distinct
conceptualizations pertaining to the organization of episodic memories.
A prevailing view in the literature has been to conceptualize episodic
memories as proxy representations for the conceptual self, mostly
providing sensory-based representations and details of lived experi­
ences. Within that perspective, the conceptual self acts as boundaries forthe retrieval of autobiographical and episodic memories and tints anddistorts memory information, such that retrieved memories are mostly aproxy for self-conceptual information. Within that structure, episodic
and autobiographical memories are hierarchically fully subsumed toconceptual self-knowledge. An understudied view is the memories-asindependent-representations hypothesis, which specifies that episodic
memories are not necessarily fully integrated into the autobiographicalknowledge base (e.g., Rubin, 2006; Winocur et al., 2010). They can bepartially integrated, only related to goal structures, only associated withsemantic knowledge through their frame (Conway, 2009), or fully
Table 3
Hierarchical multiple regressions of work outcomes on need satisfaction in
work-related memories, controlling for demographics and need satisfaction atwork in general.
Variables
Age
Sex
Number of working
hours
Education

Need satisfaction at
work

Need satisfaction in
work-related
memories

Steps

Self-determined
motivation

Burnout

Turnoverintentions†

.13
-.22*
.13

-.02
.01
.15

-.02
.76
-.02

.18
3.33*

-.03
0.55

.09
3.71

.12
.38**

.02
-.43**.03− 3.18**

Step 2 F(1,100)/χ2(1)Change R2

18.22**

21.17**

40.84**

.14
.22*

.17
-.22*

.31
-.77*

Step 3 F(1,99)/χ2(1)Change R2

5.30*

4.59*

5.86*

.04

.04

.07

Step 1 F(4,101)/χ2(4)R2

Note. *p < .05, **p < .01.
†A hierarchical logistic multiple regression was used given the dichotomous
nature of the turnover dependent variable and step Chi-square and Cox and Snell
R2 are reported for this regression. Reported beta coefficients are unstandardized
for turnover intentions, but standardized for the other work outcomes.
8New Ideas in Psychology 64 (2022) 100913

F.L. Philippe

Following the accumulation of similar episodic memories (andconfirmation of a general rule), general events can be formed, as well asother AK abstractions (Brown, 2016). With complex situations, thisintegration can take time and sometimes may be difficult to achieve,
such as in cases of maltreatment or trauma episodes (Smyth, True, &Souto, 2001). During this process of integration, these episodic mem­ories may be more frequently triggered and used to appraise the external
reality as a way to achieve an accumulation of other similar experiences
to eventually form general events, schemas, and rules, and therefore
more fully integrate the AKB. There are indeed theoretical suggestions
that frequent reminiscences, flashbacks, and mental intrusions would beattempts at integrating the episodic information in AKB (Brewin, Dal­gleish, & Joseph, 1996; Krans, Naring, Becker, & Holmes, 2009). While
this phenomenon is more typically associated with posttraumatic stress,
it may be a common process of many types of memories (e.g., Kaap-­
Deeder, Vansteenkiste, Petegem, Raes, & Soenens, 2016; Holmes,
James, Coode-Bate, & Deeprose, 2009). It is worth noting that thisperspective considers integration as the attempt to encode, organize,
and reconstruct the event memory coherently with one’s self, beliefs,
and worldviews. When integration is defined as an event memory taking
an overwhelming part of one’s identity in an incoherent fashion withother self representations and beliefs, than this rather leads to greater
posttraumatic symptoms (Rubin, Berntsen, & Bohni, 2008). This latter
definition of integration would actually be considered as a poor inte­
gration according to the former definition. During their integration
process, these episodic memories are likely to influence subjective ex­periences, actions, and behaviors independently of the conceptual self inwhich they are not yet integrated. Future research will be needed to test
these theoretical perspectives.
The present research has some limitations. The test of the memoriesas-independent-representations hypothesis was based on a covarianceinterpretation, which consisted in controlling for another memory, aself-conceptual measure, and for potential confounders (demographics).
Future research could use experimental designs to further differentiate
between the memories-as-proxy and memories-as-independentrepresentations hypotheses. Similarly, the associations between mem­ories and the work outcomes were based on a cross-sectional design.
Therefore, the present data cannot be interpreted as a causal effect ofmemories on work outcomes and even preclude an interpretation of thedirection of the effect. Longitudinal studies would be needed to replicate
the present findings in order to interpret the directive effect of memories
on work outcomes (but see Philippe et al., 2019).
Overall, the present findings provide greater support to the position
that episodic memories could act as independent representations andcould potentially direct behaviors and outcomes, independently of theconceptual self. This could imply that some episodic memories are notfully integrated in AK and have unique effects of their own, without
being bound by the conceptual self. Much more research will be needed
to examine in further detail this understudied perspective.

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CRediT author statement
All aspects of this research were conducted by Frederick L. Philippe.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council of Canada, grant #435-2017-1358.
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