Memories Of Negative Experiences Research Articles

WAS PHYSICAL EDUCATION AS BAD AS PEOPLE REMEMBER IT? A QUALITATIVE THEMATIC REVIEW

Observations of middle aged to retired clients in Personal Training practices in London UK, surfaced two themes; exercise-averse individuals with sedentary leisure and work pursuits reported poor experiences of physical education in secondary (high) school, whereas more active clients reported positive reflections. This instigated a systematic examination of contemporaneous documents and literature, which sought to explain the context of this reality. Five major themes emerged: The politico-educational environment from the 1960’s to the 1970’s, the parallel experience of maths anxiety, teaching practice, navigating failure and economic implications. Evidence suggests why the behaviour of a generation has been impacted; a post-war hierarchical social order undergoing profound change, poor pedagogic practices in which the less able found themselves suffering everything from corporal punishment to physical embarrassment and response models to failure predict clients’ later behaviours. The research findings substantiate the claims of clients’ memories of negative experiences with physical education at secondary school. The research concludes that the socio-economic costs associated with such past failures in PE are estimated to exceed £6 billion over the life of a contemporary five-year UK government and have clear social and economic implications for other developed democracies.

Self-Criticism and Depressive Symptoms Mediate the Relationship Between Emotional Experiences With Family and Peers and Self-Injury in Adolescence

ABSTRACTAlthough the relationship between negative childhood experiences, peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) is widely recognized, the mechanisms involved are not fully understood, especially among adolescents. This study aims to test the mediating role of both self-criticism and depressive symptoms in the relationship between memories of negative or positive experiences, current peer victimization, and NSSI. The sample consists 854 Portuguese adolescents, 451 female and 403 male, with ages between 12 and 18 years (M = 14.89; SD = 1.79), from middle and secondary schools. Participants answered self-report measures. Results from path analysis showed that memories of negative experiences, the absence of positive memories with family in childhood and peer victimization indirectly impact on NSSI through self-criticism and depressive symptoms. In addition, these stressful experiences led to depressive symptoms through self-criticism. Lastly, the most severe form of self-criticism indirectly impacts on NSSI through depressive symptoms, even though it also has a strong direct effect. It suggests that negative experiences with parents and peer victimization, as well as the absence of positive memories with family, have a negative impact on NSSI when these experiences are linked with a sense of self-hatred and depressive symptoms.

Self-regulatory depletion and attachment avoidance: Increasing the accessibility of negative attachment-related memories

Bowlby (1980) theorized that insecurely attached people use defensive memory suppression to cope with adverse events involving childhood attachment figures. In this study, defensive memory suppression was conceptualized as a form of self-regulation that, like other types of self-regulation, requires limited resources and may be undermined by the prior exercise of self-regulation. The findings of the study showed that, in the absence of self-regulatory depletion, memories of negative experiences with attachment figures were less accessible among persons who reported more dismissing avoidance. Under self-regulatory depletion, however, accessibility increased among persons high in dismissing avoidance. Depletion of self-regulatory capacity did not moderate memory accessibility for secure, preoccupied, or fearful avoidant attachment. The results imply that dismissing avoidant persons devote their limited self-regulatory resources to suppressing negative memories and keeping their attachment systems deactivated.

Depressed and anxious moods mediate relations among perceived socialization, self-focused attention, and dysfunctional attitudes.

This study examined three factors that may influence cognitive vulnerability to depression and anxiety: (1) subjects' perceptions of their relationships with their parents and the climate in their family of origin (socialization); (2) self-focused attention (focusing attention inwardly, on the self); and (3) current symptoms of depression and anxiety. Subjects were 173 university undergraduates. Perceptions of unfavorable socialization and public self-consciousness were related to dysfunctional attitudes. However, nearly all these relations disappeared when depression and anxiety were controlled statistically. These results suggest that memories of negative experiences in one's family of origin, self-focused attention, depression and anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes all may be indicators of latent negative schemas that have been activated, perhaps by recent stress.