Abstract:

Current researchers are largely concentrated on the characteristics of the high degree of autobiographical memory related to the negative emotion and depression, very few studies investigated the ways to reduce or improve the degree of autobiographical memory. The high degree of generalization of autobiographical memory is a symbol of occurrence and development of depression. Knowing how to reduce degree of generalization of autobiographical memory in order to alleviate the symptoms and lower the relapse rate of depression that needs to be resolved in psychological counseling and treatment.
Based on the previous research, 344 junior, middle school students have been selected for the experiments. The present study includes three parts: Experiment compared the generalization difference in the autobiographical memories of both the problematic state and the normal state, verifying that the positive and negative autobiographical memory scores of the problematic state were significantly lower than those of the normal group, and no significant difference in the neutral autobiographical memory score between the two groups. Experiment 2 compared the two questioning types, namely, solution-focused (SF) and problem-focused (PF) on the generalization of autobiographical memory and proved that the scores of positive, negative autobiographical memory and neutral autobiographical memory in the problem- focused questioning were significantly higher than those solution-focused questioning and control group, but there was no significant difference between the problem- focused questioning and control group in all kinds of autobiographical memory scores. A relationship between the questioning type and the autobiographical memory was established, the relation would be used in the counselling. Experiment 3 further explores the influence of solution-focused questioning on the generalization of autobiographical memory in different attribution styles, and testifies that the positive and negative autobiographical memory scores of the internal attributive group were significantly higher than those of the external attributive group, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in the neutral autobiographical memory score.
The result shows that similar to depression and other mental disorders, the degree of autobiographical memory generalization of individuals suffering from general psychological distress show a higher generalization degree of autobiographical memory; a solution-focused questioning can palliate the generalization of autobiographical memory better than question-focused questioning. Moreover, solution-focused questioning is beneficial in improving the generalization of autobiographical memory in internal attribution groups of individuals suffering from general psychological distress.
In short, we can conclude that the questioning type does affect the degree of the generalization of autobiographical memory, provides a useful attempt for psychological counselors or therapists to reduce the generalization of autobiographical memory in cases.

Key words: solution-focused questioning, question-focused questioning, autobiographical memory generalization