ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a state-of-the-art overview of the literature examining Flashbulb memories (FBMs) for positive events. It examines why FBM researchers have primarily focused on negative events. The chapter focuses on whether FBMs represent a proxy for traumatic memories and/or whether it is their distinctiveness that has driven this focus. It also examines whether FBMs for both positive and negative events serve any diverging and/or unique biopsychosocial functions. The chapter also focuses on the following four, traditional operationalizations of FBMs: confidence, vividness, consistency, and the number of details elicited with each FBM. Some researchers have argued that negative events provide an opportunity to better understand the formation of traumatic memories and, in turn, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The chapter focuses on negative events in examining FBMs stems from two, interconnected biases: the pleasantness bias and the selection bias. Positive memories even maintain their affect longer than negative memories, in what is known as the fading affect bias.
