Abstract
The present study investigated differences in incidental memory between participants with a high level of ability managing and regulating emotions (MR) and those with low MR. Targets were presented twice, and participants were asked to rate the pleasantness of episodes elicited by each target on each presentation. This was followed by an unexpected free recall test. For targets with spaced presentations, participants with high MR recalled more targets associated with pleasant episodes than those associated with unpleasant episodes. In contrast, participants with low MR recalled more targets associated with unpleasant episodes than those associated with pleasant episodes. These results suggest that MR suppressed the stronger unpleasant emotions, preventing them from being used as a retrieval cue, but did not suppress the weaker pleasant emotions.
