This prompt has an impact because it asks people to consider a high-point experience as a moment that defines who they are, which is linked in study to improved psychological well-being. According to McLean and Lilgendahl (2008, quoted in Merrill et al., 2016), emerging adults who consider their most significant memories to be essential to who they are are more likely to report feeling happy. The prompt promotes identity coherence, emotional connection, and a stronger sense of self by asking the writer to explain why the moment still matters and to do so in a relational way.

This prompt is effective because it encourages people to create a self-event connection, which has been demonstrated to promote psychological development by connecting a significant experience to one's identity or ideals. According to Merrill, Waters, and Fivush (2016), people who express positive interpretations of significant life events—particularly when connected to their developing sense of self—show greater identity commitment and personal growth. Both narrative coherence and adaptive meaning-making—two qualities essential to resilience and wellbeing—are fostered by the prompt, which invites reflection on how a formative event influenced one's self-perception.

 According to Conway and co-authors (2004), emotion is how you analyze your progress on goals. Recording your feelings as you set and pursue goals increases cognitive activity, which increases the amount of energy you have available for memory encoding, lending to increased coherence as your schemas are overwritten with more detailed narratives.

Fivush and Waters (2019) found that you have a more powerful sense of self if you can recognise the cause-and-effect of your actions on your emotional states. Acknowledging that events don’t just happen to you, but because of you, can help put you in a growth mindset. By focusing on how your accomplishments make you feel, you enable yourself to start thinking about the control you have over your feelings in other facets of your life.

According to Merrill, Waters & Fivush (2016), conceptualizing stressful events through a positive reframe can actually reduce the amount of distress you internalize. It is also important to note that the more elaborate your reminiscing is, the better you can retrieve your memories (Fivush & Nelson, 2004). By tuning in to the emotional language you are utilizing in your reminiscing and working to shift toward a more positive outlook, you can write your own story instead of letting stress control your narrative.

In research guided by Fivush & Waters (2019), they found that sharing memories with greater narrative detail integrates the event shared with the personal meaning you ascribe to it, allowing for more autobiographical memories, which boosts your sense of self and agency within the world! Additionally, Shobe & Kihlstrom (1997) explain how the level and detail of expressed emotion determine the episodic memory encoding. The more in touch you are with your emotions, the better your recall!