People exaggerated when remembering how angry they had felt about the political events but underestimated their feelings of happiness and fear. I struck a chord with the AHA moment.
Opinion: The Trauma of the Trump Years Is Being RewrittenThe New York Times, Feb. 14, 2024 (Opinion) In 2021, a study was published about how we remember political events, specifically examining recollections about two watershed moments, one being Trump’s election in 2016. The study’s lead author, Linda J. Levine, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, wrote, “People exaggerated when remembering how angry they had felt about the political events but underestimated their feelings of happiness and fear.” This is part of what she describes as “memory reconstruction,” the updating of our memories of the past to reflect our current feelings and beliefs. |
