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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 19, No. 4, 399-408 (1993)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167293194005
© 1993 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Remembering Old Flames: How the Past Affects Assessments of the Present

Leslie F. Clark

Purdue University

James E. Collins, II

Carson-Newman College

The impact of remembering a past love relationship on current well-being judgments was examined. The influence of recounting details was compared with that of drawing conclusions about these past interpersonal experiences. Participants wrote about falling in (positive event) or out of (negative event) love. Why were asked either to describe how the event occurred or to explain why the event occurred. In addition, prior understanding regarding the past relationship was examined. Experiment 1 showed why-focus contrast and how-focus assimilation effects for judgments of current relationship satisfaction and general life satisfaction. The effect for general life satisfaction held only for understood relationships. In Experiment 2, participants who initially described how they fell in love later listed more related relationship events and reported more positive mood than participants who described how they fell out of love. Prerequisites for contrast and assimilation effects are discussed.


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