Memory, emotion regulation, and social inference skills in college students

Abstract

Relationships between memory and social inference (SI) have been documented in clinical literature, and these relationships may be affected by specific symptomatology within clinical groups. Among healthy individuals, two commonly studied emotion regulation (ER) strategies, cognitive reappraisal and suppression, have been found to correlate with memory and social skills, but have not been examined in relation to SI specifically. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine relationships between various types of memory and SI in healthy young adults, and to explore whether individual differences in ER moderate the relationship between memory and SI skills. Ninety-seven participants completed computerized tasks of memory (verbal, face, and working memory), The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), and a trait ER questionnaire. Correlational analyses showed that verbal memory was positively related to SI and cognitive reappraisal was positively related to face memory. Moderation analyses showed a positive relationship between face memory and SI only for individuals who reported high trait use of cognitive reappraisal. These findings suggest that the relationship between face memory and social cognitive abilities in healthy college students may be affected by individual differences in habitual ER strategy use.