How pleasant was your childhood? Beliefs about memory shape inferences from experienced difficulty of recall

People's beliefs about how memory works can affect their inferences from ex perienced difficulty of recall. Participants were asked to recall either 4 childhood events (experienced as an easy task) or 12 childhood events (expe rienced as a difficult task). Subsequently, they were led to believe that e ither pleasant or unpleasant periods of one's life fade from memory. When t he recall task was difficult (12 events), participants who believed that me mories from unpleasant periods fade away rated their childhood as less happ y than participants who believed that memories from pleasant periods fade a way. The opposite pattern was observed when the recall task was easy (4 eve nts). This interplay of recall experiences and memory beliefs suggests that the judgemental impact of subjective experiences is shaped by beliefs abou t their meaning. It also suggests that the recall difficulty in clinical me mory work may lead a person to make negative inferences about his or her ch ildhood, provided the person shares the popular belief that memory represse s negative information.