People expect experiences of dissociation to be negative—But do not tend to remember them that way.

Across three experiments with 1,482 participants, people recalled past dissociative experiences as most often neutral and more often positive than negative, even among experiences linked to psychopathology and among individuals with clinically interesting levels of dissociation. When imagining future dissociative experiences, expectations depended on familiarity: novel experiences were rated as more likely to be negative and less likely positive or neutral than familiar ones. The findings suggest that people may draw less on past dissociative experiences to predict future ones compared to other types of experiences.

Study at a glance

Abstract

How do people appraise their past and imagined future experiences of dissociation?Over three experiments, 1,482 people brought to mind experiences of dissociation and rated how negative, positive, and neutral those experiences were when they happened or would be in the future.People remembered their past dissociative experiences as most often neutral, and more often positive than negative.This pattern persisted among a subset of experiences associated with psychopathology and a subset of people who dissociate to levels that might be clinically interesting.When people were asked about their future experiences, their expectations depended on whether they had experienced that type of dissociation before-novel experiences were rated as more likely to be negative (and less likely positive or neutral) than familiar experiences.These findings further our understanding of dissociative experiences and suggest that-relative to other experiencespeople might draw less on past experiences of dissociation to predict future ones.