Why We May Remember Stressful Experiences so Differently
This isn't always a problem yet at times, it's a big, harmful one
Certain factual experiences and the meaning we subconsciously or consciously attach to them can be perceived and interpreted distinctly differently by people. In certain situations, that can be inaccurate and false and become highly problematic and dangerous for someone.
Yael Schonbrun, writing at Relational Riffs, her Substack newsletter, recently examined this topic and I want to share it parts of it here as it relates to interactions where credibility, trust, relationships, reputation and well-being are negatively and unfairly or unjustly impacted.
Her article was titled, If We Both Lived It, Why Do We Remember It So Differently?
That’s a question, I presume, many people have had come to mind and no clarity developed for them in the moment or maybe, ever.
Schonbrun began by addressing “why people can’t agree on what really happened.” If you’ve ever lived such an experience, it can be confusing, discouraging, hurtful, maddening or depressing. It makes no sense to someone how facts are being interpreted differently, for whatever reasonable, puzzling or deviant reasons.
In her article, she refers to the work of Charan Ragnanath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, the director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California at Davis and an author.
Some people’s minds can naturally lean into assumptions that get negatively colored by their biases. If a story their mind creates makes sense to them, their strong conviction about what happened becomes their reality, even if that doesn’t align with the facts and what truly transpired.
Reasonably questioning beliefs, fact-checking and objectivity matter less than emotional subjectivity. People may have endured previous suffering and trauma and developed fears. They may have emotional hyper-reactivity about a person or situation that results in triggers and lower-level analysis that play a big role in how experiences are processed and remembered.
This means that it isn’t highly unusual and out of the question that “our memories are necessarily exceedingly biased,” Schonbrun explained.
She went on to refer to research. “As one study shows, our retrospective judgment is biased even when our in-the-moment perception is relatively unbiased,” Schonbrun wrote.
Memory can be faulty. Not always, of course. Maybe even not most of the time. Sometimes? Absolutely. That may seem insignificant yet it isn’t. A lot of pain and at times, death, has been inflicted on children, women and men because of this reality.
“I’m often asked, ‘How is it that two people can experience the same event together and yet recall it so differently?’” Schonbrun recalled.
“To quote Ben Kenobi from Star Wars, ‘Many of the truths we cling to, depend greatly on our own point of view.’ People’s different goals, emotions and beliefs lead them to interpret an event from particular perspectives, and those perspectives will also shape how they reconstruct an event later on,” she explained.
Notice: “particular perspectives.” They can be ones, at least at times, that are inaccurate or blatantly wrong and harmful to others.
Stress is an Important Variable in Memory
“Although neuromodulators can enhance retention of a memory for a stressful event, it doesn’t mean we will remember it accurately,” Ranganath wrote.
Why though?
“Stress tips the chemical balance in the brain, downregulating the executive functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex and enhancing the sensitivity of the amygdala (the part of the brain that controls emotions, especially fear, anxiety, and rage),” he detailed.
“When you remember a stressful event, your memory is likely to emphasize your feelings and the factors you were stressed out about but you might have a hazy recollection of other aspects of the event.”
A Potential Remedy
“One of the ways to bridge the gap, then, is to recognize the unreliability of our own memory (if you’re like most people, you don’t have to work quite as hard to see the flaws in (other people’s) memories),” Schonbrun wrote.
“We all want to believe our memories are accurate but the science is clear: our brains don’t store facts like a hard drive, they reconstruct stories based on emotions, focus and meaning.”
It is critical to mention again that what has been presented in this article is not to say that most people’s memories are always false or often inaccurate or wrong, especially when illegal or immoral wrongdoing has been committed.
It is to say that human’s memories and what they communicate about them are not always beyond reasonable curiosity, questioning and doubting at certain times because of what science has learned and what Schonbrun and Ragnanath have learned and clearly communicated.
Memories can help us greatly yet too frequently can unfairly and unjustly harm others reputationally, socially, relationship health and their survival, legally, mentally and physically, safety wise, opportunity wise and financially.
Michael Toebe is the specialist at Reputation Intelligence, helping individuals and organizations with matters of credibility, trust, decision analysis, communications, relationships and reputation.
You can DM him on Substack or contact him below for consulting, risk analysis, coaching, ongoing advisory, a variety of proactive and responsive communications and reputation (not legal) representation.
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