The posttraumatic growthinventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. The absence of aninteraction also suggests that the Grade Condition interaction on subjective distance judgments was not mediated byThe distancing findings conceptually replicate those obtained inStudy 1. 59. Frequency of rehearsal and ease of recall of past episodes alsopredicted feelings of distance, but these variables did not account for the Self-Esteem interaction on subjective distancing of personal events.People often promote their associations with successful individ-uals and downplay their connections to unsuccessful persons (Cial-dini, 1989; Cialdini et al., 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980;Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986). We assumethat a tendency to feel more removed from unfavorable thanfavorable episodes is motivated by a desire to maintain positiveself-regard. The only interaction that we expected to reach significanceStandardized betas are reported in Table 2. All rights reserved.Five hundred fifty-seven students in an introductory psy-Participants received a package of questionnaires in class.93). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determi-Smith, S. M., & Petty, R. E. (1995). In contrast,people may represent subjectively distant and current selves asIt is possible to extend our theorizing and predictions to futureas well as to past selves. Individuals may be able to report their current ease of recallwith greater precision than their frequency of thought over months.Consistent with the results of the previous studies, we expectedparticipants to report that positive personal events felt closer thandid negative ones when we controlled for actual reported distance.We examined whether this same bias would be evident for eventsoccurring to acquaintances and whether ease of recall mediated thesubjective distance judgments of HSE and LSE participants.ually and invited to complete a questionnaire in exchange for a candy or apen. As long he is free, dinning and winening, talking to the fresh faced girls in his YPFDJ outfit, dallying the easy ones, and flying to the finest cities of the globe, it will always feel like yesterday, Time will fly by. Calen-dar time appears to be the primary determinant of judgments of thesubjective distance of events that happened to other people. It suggests instead that feelings ofsubjective temporal distance are sufficiently flexible that they canbe shifted on-line in response to current motivational concerns.HSEs are motivated to dissociate themselves more from undesir-able than from desirable past outcomes; their judgments of sub-jective distance help them to accomplish this goal.

Relative to judgments about the subjective dis-sonal outcomes as more distant, positive personal outcomes asmore recent, or both? By the same token,individuals may strive to hold on to positive past events (bykeeping them subjectively close) and discard negative past events(by rendering them subjectively distant) to the extent that theseepisodes affect their feelings about themselves. Most prior research on autobiographical reminiscing has taken a variable‐oriented approach to examine relations of reminiscing variables with outcomes. But it remains unclear how people foster a positive, morally good view of the self in the present.

Also, participants reported thinking more aboutand remembering more readily episodes that have positive (i.e.,good grades, proud events) rather than negative (i.e., poorergrades, embarrassing events) implications for their self-regard.Although our finding that rehearsal and ease of recall were relatedto subjective distance is consistent with previous research ondating (e.g., N. R. Brown et al., 1985; Thompson et al., 1996), thecurrent data suggest that these variables do not account for therelation of self-esteem to the subjective distancing of personalevents. Also,the subjective distance estimates of HSEs were influenced by thevalence of the experience, whereas those of LSEs were not. Top synonyms for it feels like yesterday (other words for it feels like yesterday) are it seems like just yesterday, it seems like yesterday and seems like only yesterday. There is thus noactual dates of the target events contributed to the observed bias insubjective distance. (2000) reported findings that are particularly relevant to thecurrent research. As well, their representations ofsubjectively close and present selves may overlap. (1997). None of the interactions involving valence,agent, and self-esteem approached significance on the measure ofcant main effects or interactions due to the counterbalanced orderof presentation (self-esteem item presented at the beginning or enddistance scales were averaged for purposes of analysis (Cron-agent and event valence. The subjective dates ofCialdini, R. B. Among participants low in homesickness, nostalgic music triggered more downward (relative to upward) temporal comparisons, which enhanced their subjective well-being. The final sampleand returned it completed several days later.