The Malleability of Memory of Emotion for First Dates

Previous research found memories of emotions are malleable, and that extended to autobiographically important memories of emotions. It was unclear whether this would generalize to memories of emotions towards former date partners. In this experiment, we examine whether memories of emotion towards a first date partner can be biased with changing cognitive appraisals. Participants were 201 UK residents of average age 37. After randomly assigning participants to different writing prompt conditions to nudge their current appraisals of their first-date-partner, we found subsequent recall of emotion was biased accordingly. Those reappraising their partner in a downward direction remembered more negative emotion, including distress, compared to comparison conditions. Reappraising downwards biased memories of how unsafe they felt on their first date, and of feeling forced to do something. A few years after #MeToo, that these biases might be important to take into account when people reappraise past dating experiences.