鈥淟ET us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that鈥檚 gone,鈥� advised William Shakespeare in The Tempest. But as anyone who has suffered the storms of a broken heart will know, that isn鈥檛 as easy as it sounds. Now psychologists may have found the reason why it is so difficult to forget the pain of failed relationships.
The fading affect bias is a mental filter that makes the negative emotions attached to our memories fade faster than any positive feelings, helping us move on from bad experiences. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a healthy process because we can鈥檛 live in the past,鈥� says Bettina Zengel at the University of Southampton, UK. 鈥淏ut when we think about past relationships, the good doesn鈥檛 seem to win. It鈥檚 beaten out by the bad.鈥�
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Her team asked more than 200 men and women to describe events from a current or former romance and how they made them feel now. Just under half the group chose events from their existing relationships, and, on average, their positive memories were more potent than their negative feelings.
But the fading affect bias didn鈥檛 seem to work as well when it came to remembering past relationships. Those who talked about events involving a former partner were just as likely to experience both the negative and positive emotions all over again.
鈥淲hen we think about past relationships, the good memories seem to be beaten out by the bad鈥�
Things got worse when the researchers asked about memories of sexual experiences. In those cases, the negative feelings from failed relationships were more likely to persist than positive ones. The team found that bad feelings were more likely to endure if the person felt insecure (Applied Cognitive Psychology, ).
Tim Ritchie at Saint Xavier University in Chicago says this is the first study of the fading affect bias in romantic relationships, and the results could identify people who may benefit from counselling.
