Seeking Closure Good For Mind, Body Says UA Psychologist

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - In the midst of a society that encourages people to mull over their problems, to air them publicly and discuss them at length, a University of Arkansas psychologist says that finding closure and putting problems to rest can ease people’s minds, boost self-confidence, even benefit their physical health.

"We’re a talk show culture. We urge people to talk about their issues, to keep events and experiences alive in their minds," said Denise Beike, assistant professor of psychology. "This can enable people to work through their problems, but it also can be taken too far to the point where it interferes with the healing process."

Beike has been studying the phenomenon of event memory - the way people remember their experiences and how they classify those memories within the overall context of their lives. She presents her research today (Friday, Nov. 10) at "Memory and the Self," a special symposium hosted by the University of Arkansas, which has gathered renowned scholars of cognitive, social and developmental psychology from around the nation.

According to Beike, people classify event memories in two ways. Closed memories represent those issues or events that people have resolved in their minds or otherwise put behind them. Open memories include experiences that have not been put to rest, issues people persist in thinking about long after the fact. Whether these memories represent unresolved conflict, unexplained mysteries or events that an individual wants to keep fresh in his or her mind, open memories in some way continue to relate to the person’s life.

People recognize which issues are open or closed in their lives because they respond the two types of event memory differently, Beike said. Open memories carry an emotional residue, so people often respond to these memories with great feeling. In addition, people tend to think about open memories more often and remember them more accurately. People may even feel compelled to act in some way as a result of remembering.

Beike’s presentation will outline the differences between closed and open memories and will discuss the interplay that exists between event memories and self-perception. She’ll do so by focusing on two research projects conducted at the U of A.

The first of these studies divided 50 UA undergraduates into two groups. Beike asked the first group to describe an experience in their lives that they now considered closed. She asked the second group to describe an open experience. After completing their descriptions, each group received a list of terms and were asked to select the terms they felt best represented them.

Beike found that the students who brought to mind closed events chose more positive terms to describe themselves, indicating a higher level of self-confidence at that moment.

"I theorize that by remembering an issue that they had resolved or overcome, these students felt more confident about their own abilities," Beike explained. "Attaining closure is an accomplishment, and recognizing your own accomplishments makes you feel good about yourself."

Beike speculates that this boost of self-confidence is one of the reasons people continue to remember closed events. In informal interviews, students have repeatedly told Beike that their open issues say more about who they are than closed issues do. From this, the researcher has deduced that open and closed memories serve very different functions in regard to people’s self-perceptions.

People tend to define themselves according to their open memories, the issues they’re currently facing, Beike said. While open, these memories become an important part of their thoughts and personalities. But closed memories are resolved issues - no longer part of this self-defining process. So why do people persist in remembering them?

Beike believes it’s because closed memories act as a self-confirmation, attesting to the fact that people have been through difficult situations before and pulled through. This function helps ease people’s minds and makes them feel good about themselves.

But mental health is not the only benefit of closed memories. Beike’s second study revealed a correlation indicating that closure can boost a person’s physical health as well.

Beike polled more than 400 students of general psychology, inquiring whether they’d ever experienced a traumatic event. Such events included death of a loved one, rape or incest, loss of a home to fire or a painful breakup with a romantic partner. Roughly 30 percent (120 students) reported they had experienced such an event. Each student was then asked how much closure they felt they had on these experiences.

When the questionnaires came back, Beike separated the students into three groups - those who had experienced trauma and felt that open issues remained associated with the experience, those who had experienced trauma and attained closure, and those who had never experienced trauma.

In addition to the questionnaire about trauma, the same 400 students also completed surveys about their self-confidence levels and their general physical health. By comparing the surveys between her three groups, Beike found that students with open, traumatic memories reported lower self-esteem while the students who had attained closure ranked just as high on self-confidence as those who had never experienced trauma. Furthermore, students with open issues reported a greater number of doctor visits each year.

"It’s repeatedly been shown that mental and emotional stress can affect a person’s physical health," Beike said. "This study indicates that people who keep traumatic issues open do so despite a toll on their mental and physical health."

If open memories put a person’s health at risk, one must question why people continue to harbor - sometimes even nurture - such issues. Beike believes the answer is both psychological and social.

People tend to remember open events more vividly than those they’ve closed. Such vivid memories can, in fact, comfort people - especially those who have lost a loved one and who wish to keep the memory alive, Beike said. In addition, the emotional impact of open memories causes people to think about those issues more often and more deeply, and this type of thought can both encourage and facilitate closure. But there’s a social component as well.

"Our society encourages people to explore their open issues," said Beike. "If a person sought and achieved closure too soon, they’d be considered somewhat heartless and cold. By considering and discussing open events, we learn about ourselves and we grow closer to others. That’s worthwhile as long as you don’t allow such thought and discussion to become excessive."

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