Abstract
Background
Research on depression has largely focused on negative intrusive memories with little research on general involuntary memories as they occur in everyday life. In addition, all studies have been conducted on Western participants, and there are no studies on general involuntary memory in Eastern patients with depression.
Methods
Thirty Chinese patients with depression and 30 healthy controls completed a memory diary in which they recorded a total of 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories. They were requested to fill out corresponding questionnaires of involuntary and voluntary memories as well.
Results
Both patients with depression and healthy controls reported involuntary memories that had a more negative impact, were more specific, and were associated with more maladaptive emotion regulation when compared to voluntary memories. For both retrieval modes, patients with depression reported more negative and fewer positive memories, more negative and less positive mood impact, more avoidance, rumination, worry, negative interpretation, and less positive interpretation in response to the memories. Patients with depression rated their memories as more central, less specific, and rehearsed more frequently. Negative mood impact and maladaptive emotion regulation associated with involuntary memories were amplified in depression.
Conclusions
These findings support the view that general involuntary memories could be a potential target to promote the treatment for depression.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81801347).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by YS, DB, SY and YH. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Yanyan Shan, Shuya Yan, Yanbin Jia, Yilei Hu, David C. Rubin, Dorthe Berntsen declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Shan, Y., Yan, S., Jia, Y. et al. The Properties of Involuntary and Voluntary Autobiographical Memories in Chinese Patients with Depression and Healthy Individuals. Cogn Ther Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10353-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10353-0