threat. Because much of episodic retrieval is a top-down spread of activation from more general to more specific levels of the autobiographical memory hierarchy, emotionally avoidant individuals are prone to learn to “short-circuit” retrieval at a higher, more general level of the hierarchy in order to block painful recollections. As this avoidance strategy becomes habitual, it increasingly prevents effective searching and retrieval of specific memories. In support of this idea, a study of individuals with schizophrenia found a link between the degree of suicidality and the number of specific memories, implying that patients who were in less acute distress were employing a more defensive memory strategy (Taylor, Gooding, Wood, & Tarrier, 2010). Meaning-Making For healthy functioning, the capacity for memory specificity should also be accompanied by the capacity to connect the memory narrative to adaptive self-structures in the long-term self. In other words, individuals will be effective at goal pursuits and navigating life challenges when they can generate informative self-event connections as described above – when they employ memories, scripts, and the life story to explain, reveal, or cause change in the self. At each level of narrative identity (memories, scripts, and the life story), researchers have often found that the capacity for meaning-making in response to narrated experience is generally predictive of psychological health, well-being and capacity for growth. However, a major caveat is that the meanings extracted from experience need to be coherent (i.e., sensible rather than fragmented), flexible (i.e., capable of revision in light of new information), and accurate (e.g., neither too nor too grandiose). Much of the foundations of cognitive-behavioral therapy are premised
C. M. Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde, and P. Morris (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle. New York, NY: Tavistock/Routledge. Mansell, W., & Lam, D. (2004). A preliminary study of autobiographical memory in remitted bipolar and unipolar depression and the role of imagery in the specificity of memory. Memory, 12(4), 437-446. Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954-969. McAdams, D. P. (1982). Experiences of intimacy and Relationships between social motives and autobiographical memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(2), 292-302. McAdams, D. P. (1985). Power, intimacy, and the life story: Personological inquiries into identity. New York: Guilford. McAdams, D. P. (1995). What do we know when we know a person? Journal of Personality, 63(3), 365–396. McAdams, D. P. (1996). Personality, modernity, and the storied self: A contemporary framework for studying persons. Psychological Inquiry, 7(4), 295-321. McAdams, D. P., & de St. Aubin, E. (1992). A theory of generativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themes in autobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(6), 1003-1015. McAdams, D. P., de St. Aubin, E., & Logan, R. L. (1993). Generativity among young, midlife, and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 8(2), 221-230. McAdams, D. P., Diamond, A., de St. Aubin, E., & Mansfield, E. (1997). Stories of commitment: The psychosocial construction of generative Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(3), 678-694.