Revisiting negative experiences: A sociocultural cognitive framework

Abstract

AbstractSeveral researchers have demonstrated that revisiting and making meaning out of negative experiences can be helpful, while others have suggested that such “dwelling in the past” (e.g., rumination) is associated with a range of negative outcomes, such as depression. In addition to such inconsistent findings, negative effects of revisiting negative experiences have been shown to be weaker in non‐Western cultures compared to Western cultures. This paper employs a sociocultural cognitive framework to understand the mechanisms of such cultural differences, as well as potentially shed light on some of the paradoxes behind revisiting negative experiences observed in Western cultures. We specified how the different perspectives towards change, context, and contradiction between holistic/dialectical versus analytic thinking styles may have an impact on the effects of recalling and reflecting upon past negative events. We integrated a wide range of empirical evidence that implies how the cognitive differences serve as mechanisms for cultural differences in revisiting negative experiences, generated a set of hypotheses, and outlined possible directions for future research.