Previous research has found memories of emotions are malleable, and that extended to autobiographically important memories of emotions. It was unclear whether this would generalize to memories of emotions towards former date partners. After finding significant results in Experiment 1, we then conducted the larger Experiment 2 examining whether memories of emotion towards a first date partner can be biased with changing cognitive appraisals. Participants were 93 UK students or young adults of average age 22 in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, 201 UK participants from the general public of average age 37 were recruited online (Prolific). After randomly assigning participants to different writing prompt conditions to nudge their current appraisals of their first date partner, we found subsequent recall of emotion was biased accordingly. Those reappraising their partner in a downward direction remembered more negative emotions, including distress, compared to comparison conditions. Reappraising downwards biased memories of how unsafe they felt on their first date, and of feeling forced to do something. These biases might be important to consider when people reappraise past dating experiences, especially if the original memories have faded with time, or were not encoded well initially.
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