Misremembering Solitude: The Role of Personality and Cultural Self-Concepts in Shaping Discrepancies Between Recalled and Concurrent Affect in Solitude.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Affect recall is key to psychological assessment and decision-making. However, self-concepts (self-beliefs) may bias retrospective affect reports such that they deviate from lived experiences. Does this experience-memory gap apply to solitude experiences? We hypothesized that individuals misremember how they feel overall and when in solitude, in line with self-concepts of introversion, self-determined/not-self-determined solitude motivations, and independent/interdependent self-construal. A pilot study comparing retrospective to daily affect reports captured over 2 weeks (N = 104 UK university students) provided preliminary evidence of introversion and not-self-determined solitude shaping affect recall.

Methods

In the main pre-registered study, participants aged 1

SUBMITTER: Lay JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11705513 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature