Browsing by Author "Oner, Sezin"

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Citation Count: 14
Collective Remembering and Future Forecasting During the Covid-19 Pandemic: How the Impact of Covid-19 Affected the Themes and Phenomenology of Global and National Memories Across 15 Countries
(Springer, 2023) Oner, Sezin; Watson, Lynn Ann; Adiguzel, Zeynep; Ergen, Irem; Bilgin, Ezgi; Curci, Antonietta; Cole, Scott
The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed.
Citation Count: 0
Healthcare Workers' Memories in the Covid-19 Pandemic: the Role of Visual Perspective and Event Centrality in Subjective Temporal Distance
(Wiley, 2024) Bilgin, Ezgi; Oner, Sezin
We investigated the factors associated with subjective temporal distance of pandemic-related events in a sample of healthcare workers. A total of 257 healthcare workers were asked to recall two COVID-19 pandemic-related events that impacted them the most at the beginning of the pandemic (April-May 2020), and rated event centrality, phenomenological characteristics, subjective temporal distance, and visual perspective (field vs. observer) for each reported event. Results showed a negative relationship between subjective temporal distance and event centrality only for memories remembered from the field perspective (field memories), but not those remembered from the observer perspective (observer memories). Furthermore, event centrality enhanced recollection of sensory and perceptual details, which, in turn, resulted in memories being felt temporally closer to people. However, only field memories, not observer memories, revealed this pattern, showing that recollective experience shaped by visual perspective mediates the relationship between event centrality and subjective temporal distance.
Citation Count: 0
The Impact of Covid-19 Trauma on Healthcare Workers: Examining the Relationship Between Stress and Growth Through the Lens of Memory
(Wiley, 2024) Oner, Sezin; Bilgin, Ezgi; Caglar, Emine Seyma
The COVID-19 pandemic constituted tremendous traumatic stress among the frontline healthcare workers. In the present study, we investigated relationships of two types of rumination, namely brooding and reflection, with traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth and the mediating role of recollective experience in these relationships. A total of 88 healthcare workers (75% female, M-age = 54.91) actively providing service to COVID-19 patients reported two memories of events that impacted them the most at the first peak of the pandemic and rated their recollective experience (i.e., phenomenological characteristics of memories). We used structural equation modelling to test whether recollective experience mediated the link of brooding and reflection with post-trauma reactions of stress and growth. The findings showed that brooding and reflection were associated with higher levels of traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. Importantly, recollective experience mediated the relationship of rumination with traumatic stress but this differed for the type of rumination. Higher brooding was associated with greater traumatic stress and that relationship was independent of how well the memories were recollected, while for reflection, high reflection was associated with stronger recollective experience, which predicted higher traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. The present study shows the functional dimensions of reflective rumination and presents novel findings that demonstrates the discrete mnemonic mechanisms underlying the association between brooding, reflection, and post-trauma reactions.
Citation Count: 1
Lack of Bump in Public Events When Recent Events Prevail
(Sage Publications inc, 2023) Oner, Sezin; Gulgoz, Sami
Reminiscence bump refers to the increased recall of events from adolescence and early adulthood. It is a robust phenomenon for personal events, while the evidence for the bump has been inconsistent for public events. The present study addressed lifespan distributions of public events in a nationally representative sample of adults (N = 1200) in Turkey. We demonstrated a robust recency effect in the temporal distribution of public event memories. When we examined the bump in the most frequently reported events, the recency effect persisted. The only exception was the bump for the military coup in 1980, a relatively more distant event among the most frequent events. Findings suggested that high-impact events in Turkey's recent past may overshadow the past events. Inline, we discuss the role of the context and age distribution of the sample to explain the inconsistency in the evidence for the reminiscence bump in public events.
Citation Count: 0
Mnemonic Regulation of Sadness and Anger: the Role of Spontaneous Vs Instructed Recall
(Springer, 2023) Oner, Sezin; Kaya-Kiziloz, Burcu
Mood-incongruency effects in autobiographical recall have been conceptualized as a function of the emotion regulation through which the content and the phenomenology of the autobiographical memories serve to repair negative moods. Arguing that negative mood automatically activates mnemonic emotion regulation, in the present study we examined how negative emotions guide the subsequent spontaneous and instructed recall and whether distinct phenomenological patterns are observed in mnemonic regulation of sadness and anger. After participants watched video clips for sadness, anger, or happiness, they reported first any event that comes to their mind (spontaneous recall), then an event that specifically makes them happy (instructed recall). We found the changes in the phenomenology of the reported events was different for sadness and anger groups. While more robust changes were observed for sadness earlier in the spontaneous recall with higher phenomenological ratings than the anger group, in the instructed recall the difference disappeared, suggesting for the relatively late-onset compensation in the anger group.
Citation Count: 0
An Online Diary Study Testing the Role of Functional and Dysfunctional Self-Licensing in Unhealthy Snacking
(Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd, 2023) Sezer, Berke; Oner, Sezin
In the present study, we aimed to investigate how two types of self-licensing (functional and dysfunctional selflicensing) are related to unhealthy snack consumption. Self-licensing refers to the act of using justifications before gratifications and has been associated with higher snack consumption. Previous research has found that while functional self-licensing decreases unhealthy snack consumption, dysfunctional self-licensing increases the number of calories taken from unhealthy snacks. Building upon existing evidence, we addressed functional and dysfunctional self-licensing to investigate how self-licensing behaviors are associated with daily variables (i.e., stress and sleep) and unhealthy snacking habits. Participants (N = 124) were given a battery of measures at the start of the week and asked to send their snack consumption every night for a week via an online questionnaire, along with daily stress and sleep items. The data were analyzed with Hierarchical Linear Modelling. Neither selflicensing measures nor unhealthy snacking habits predicted unhealthy snack consumption. Daily stress was associated with lower unhealthy snack consumption. However, the interaction between daily stress and functional self-licensing was significant, suggesting that on stressful days functional self-licensers consume even fewer unhealthy snacks compared to less stressful days. Functional and dysfunctional self-licensing are rather new constructs which is why examining their effects is important for further research. However, in contrast to the existing evidence, we failed to find an effect of both types of self-licensing on snack consumption, suggesting the effect depends on potential contextual or individual-specific factors. Future research using a dieting sample is warranted for a better understanding of how functional and dysfunctional self-licensing operate.
Citation Count: 3
Spontaneous Past and Future Thinking About the COVID-19 Pandemic Across 14 Countries: Effects of Individual and Country-Level COVID-19 Impact Indicators
(Amer Psychological Assoc, 2022) Cole, Scott N.; Markostamou, Ioanna; Watson, Lynn Ann; Barzykowski, Krystian; Ergen, Irem; Taylor, Andrea; Oner, Sezin
In 2020, the world was amid a global health crisis-the COVID-19 pandemic. Nations had varying levels of morbidity and mortality and adopted different measures to prevent the spread of infection. Effects of the pandemic on spontaneous (rather than voluntary) past and future thoughts remain unexplored. Here, we report data from a multicountry online study examining how both country- and individual-level factors are associated with this core aspect of human cognition. Results showed that national (stringency of measures) and individual (attention to COVID-related information and worry) factors separately and jointly predicted the frequency of people's pandemic-related spontaneous thoughts. Additionally, no typical positivity biases were found, as both past and future spontaneous thoughts had a negative emotional valence. This large-scale multinational study provides novel insights toward better understanding the emergence and qualities of spontaneous past and future thoughts. Findings are discussed in terms of the determinants and functions of spontaneous thought. General Audience Summary The COVID-19 pandemic was a global phenomenon; people in countries across the world experienced the pandemic similarly, but did it affect the way we perceived the past and future? This study reports whether and how people experienced spontaneous thoughts about the past and future of the pandemic-that is, images of the past or future that appear in mind without warning and with little effort (e.g., remembering a recent lockdown or imagining a future announcement)-during the pandemic's first wave. Spontaneous past and future thoughts are important in daily life and can indicate poor mental health when negative in nature. Here, for the first time, we asked people from 14 different countries across four continents to report the frequency and emotional characteristics of their spontaneous past and future pandemic-related thoughts in the first wave of the pandemic. The study showed that the national context (in particular, COVID regulations) predicted the frequency of people's spontaneous thoughts about the pandemic. Emotional aspects of these thoughts were predicted by individual factors such as isolation, worry, attention to COVID-related information, and impact of COVID-19 on everyday life, in addition to national factors. Finally, in contrast to previous research showing a positive bias, which is thought to be beneficial, past and future spontaneous pandemic-related thoughts had a negative emotional tone. This study allowed us to demonstrate that the tendency to experience spontaneous thoughts about an ongoing international event can be predicted by societal context, which may be valuable for examining the social predictors of spontaneous emotional thoughts about the past and future. The study also characterized the negative tone of past and future spontaneous thoughts about the pandemic, and future studies will be needed to examine the longer term consequences of these effects.