Understanding the interplay between memory and emotion is crucial for the work of researchers in many arenas--clinicians, psychologists interested in eyewitness ...

This chapter addresses what is by far the largest research area in the examination of memory in clinical groups — research conducted with depressed or naturally unhappy people. It explores the connection between memory phenomena and habits of thought. More so than most anxious people, depressed people ruminate about their troubles. The practiced thought patterns of rumination facilitate memory for emotionally consistent events and interfere with memory for other events. Moreover, these habits take over under conditions of poor cognitive control, (...) the main feature of cognition in depression. Here, depression is used imprecisely to refer to both diagnostic categories and the self-reported state of dysphoria. “Dysphoria” is used to denote undiagnosed negative affect, of the sort that produces moderate-to-high scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. The chapter argues that the negative consequences of habitual thinking can be overcome by external control or by the training of new habits of thought. (shrink)