Going Deeper:

Why we evolved to fast-track and link together

emotionally charged memories – a matter of life

and death

Study after study has shown we’re far more likely to remember information that’s emotionally charged rather than emotionally neutral, especially when it reminds us of information that’s already stored in our long-term memory. But as we know, remembering negative experiences from the past can be extremely painful and can cause us all kinds of problems. So WHY on earth did humans evolve this way?

Well, it seems to be all about survival…. and when I say ‘survival’ I mean a matter of life and death!

Learning from emotional experiences keeps us safe

It seems we’ve evolved to notice and remember experiences that have a strong emotional charge because this would have given us evolutionary benefits long ago.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the things that aroused negative emotions, (such as anger or fear), would usually have been dangerous events that threatened our ancestors’ physical survival. Those who survived these emotionally charged experiences and remembered them, would have been better prepared to respond appropriately the next time around, (typically by fighting, freezing or running away). For example, our ancestors who remembered a near miss with a scary wild animal would be sure to take cover or be ready to defend themselves the next time they encountered one… so they’d be more likely to survive and pass on their genes to their descendants.

In fact, we’re also genetically programmed to remember experiences that trigger positive emotions and it seems this also helped our ancestors to survive. If they remembered pleasurable events, (for example social experiences that helped them bond with other people), they’d be more likely to take advantage of them the next time the opportunity arose. When you’re under pressure just to survive, it’s good to be able to count on the people around you, … so this might have improved survival rates for themselves and their children.

Even today, the ability to remember intense emotional events can be really useful in helping us learn… especially from our mistakes. It’s rare for a small child to touch a hot pan and burn her hand more than once. And the memory of intensely positive moments from the past can motivate us to do whatever it takes to experience them again.

Unfortunately, this might also be why we stick with unsuitable guys who are occasionally wonderful, hoping the good times will come again, instead of learning from our mistakes and walking away. We’ll come back to this topic later in PART 2.

So why are we more likely to remember things that link to our existing memories?

Once again, this probably goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Our distant ancestors obviously couldn’t rely on search engines to help them find things out or recall important information… they couldn’t even write it down. So, at a time when just staying alive was a daily challenge, working out what information might be ‘useful’ in the future and then being able to remember it could have been a big advantage.

Change happened slowly, so a good test of usefulness might have been whether a new piece of information was relevant to other things they already knew and found helpful for their survival. Early humans who could focus in on relevant, useful information and discard random bits of information that didn’t fit into their existing knowledge base, could therefore have had an evolutionary advantage.

If our ancestors had ‘organised’ their information in a way that made it quick and easy to retrieve, this could also have helped them survive in the face of danger where every second counted. Linking their new information to the existing information in their long-term memory, (as we might tag related photos or flag related emails so we can find them again quickly) would be one effective way of doing this. So again, we can see how linking together new and old memories could have been a good survival strategy.

So fast-tracking and linking together emotionally charged memories seems to be left over from a time when life was very different… a bit like wisdom teeth.

Early humans who remembered emotionally charged experiences probably had a higher probability of surviving and passing on their genes to the next generation, especially if they linked related memories together sensibly in their long-term memory for easy recall.

It’s useful for us to know this because it explains why, even today, we’re more likely to notice and remember experiences that are emotionally charged and linked to our past. And understanding how our painful memories are stored and linked together gives us a valuable insight into how we can cut the links, defuse the painful emotions… and clear out our Emotional Baggage for good.