posted March 22, 2012 08:32 PM            

For this reason people may come under the impression that "all men" or "all women" are in some way negative..
Maybe they are simply applying a bunch of negative past events/experiences to fit the majority... because the positive things have faded in their memory.

Does that make sense?

quote:

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We Remember Bad Times Better Than Good
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2007)

Do you remember exactly where you were when you learned of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Your answer is probably yes, and researchers are beginning to understand why we remember events that carry negative emotional weight.

In the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger and colleagues, explain when emotion is likely to reduce our memory inconsistencies.

Her research shows that whether an event is pleasurable or aversive seems to be a critical determinant of the accuracy with which the event is remembered, with negative events being remembered in greater detail than positive ones.

For example, after seeing a man on a street holding a gun, people remember the gun vividly, but they forget the details of the street. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), studies have shown increased cellular activity in emotion-processing regions at the time that a negative event is experienced.

The more activity in the orbitofrontal cortex and the amygdala, two emotion-processing regions of the brain, the more likely an individual is to remember details intrinsically linked to the emotional aspect of the event, such as the exact appearance of the gun.

Kensinger argues that recognizing the effects of negative emotion on memory for detail may, at some point, save our lives by guiding our actions and allowing us to plan for similar future occurrences. "These benefits make sense within an evolutionary framework," writes Kensinger. "It is logical that attention would be focused on potentially threatening information."

This line of research has far-reaching implications in understanding autobiographical memory and assessing the validity of eyewitness testimony. Kensinger also believes that this research may end insight into the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Article: "Negative Emotion Enhances Memory Accuracy", Current Directions in Psychological Science.

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posted March 23, 2012 06:43 AM            

Problem with subconscious mind is it's like a filing system with no order or classifications. Hypnotherapy is a great tool for releasing negative emotions attached to painful memories. You keep reliving it in your mind through visualisation techniques until the emotional 'charge' has gone...