The Covid-19 pandemic and the emotional autobiographical memories of the first lockdown

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic on the emotional autobiographical memory of a group of adults from the Bergamo province, one of the areas that experienced the most dramatic consequences of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Eighty-three people (43 females and 40 males) aged between 20 and 69 years took part in a web survey. We administered three self-report instruments: an autobiographical narrative task asking participants to recount an emotional event that occurred during the first lockdown, and two questionnaires assessing the memory features of reported events and their centrality for participants' life stories. Content analysis of the autobiographical narratives showed that 86% of participants recounted an emotional event with negative hedonic valence, while the remaining 14% recounted an emotional event with positive hedonic valence. The most cited negative events included deaths and hospitalizations due to Covid; on the other hand, the positive events dealt with leisure activities, family reunions, and recovery from Covid. Negative memories and positive memories were highly similar in relation to their narrative and phenomenological characteristics, as well as with respect to their centrality for participants' life histories. In the conclusions, the authors interpret the results in light of both the contemporary literature on emotional autobiographical memory and the characteristics of the emergency context they investigated.