“Become Aware of Memory Bias

When people are anxious, they often have biased recall for events. For example, Brian talks himself into believing he screwed up an interview for a promotion because he thinks over and over about things he could’ve said. However, he doesn’t as easily recall the good answers he gave. He endlessly mentally rehashes ambiguous cues the interviewers gave off, such as appearing to rush through questions, but doesn’t as easily recall when the interviewers responded positively.
Another example: A friend of mine used to talk herself into believing she’d failed every exam she ever took. She’d ruminate over all the answers she hadn’t known and wouldn’t recall questions she’d been able to answer correctly. The take-home message when you’re ruminating: Don’t trust your memory. You might be ruminating about something fictional or at least magnified. This also applies to ruminating about how you think others perceive you; you may just be mind reading based on a biased memory of interactions.
Experiment: Do you have any current rumination topics where memory bias might be playing a role? If you can’t think of anything now, come back to this experiment when you have an issue that fits. Answer the following questions:

1. What’s your ruminating mind telling you?
2. What are the objective data telling you about whether your ruminative thoughts are likely to be correct? For example, my friend who always convinced herself she’d failed exams had never failed anything.
3. Are you recalling feedback as harsher than it was or recalling blips in your performance as worse than they were?”