Welcome

Welcome, high school seniors! We know that during this time, you are going through a major transitional period, trying to figure out what is next, whether that is college, trade school, or finding a job. Or you may be undecided, and that is totally fine. There is a lot of anxiety that you may be feeling during this time, and you may find yourself ruminating in the past, and struggle to look forward to plan for what you want your future to look like. If that description sounds like you, then you may benefit from reading through this website and taking a look at our workbook, which is filled with activities that we encourage you to try. We are utilizing cognitive psychological research in memory and well-being to inform you on techniques you may use to navigate this time. What we are proposing is not general self-help that is based on anecdotal experience; we are providing an intervention rooted in modern science. If you find that these techniques do not serve you in improving your anxiety, it may be due to cultural or individual differences, and if that is the case, it is essential not to treat it as a personal failure, and to continue being resilient and seek out other support. This intervention is not designed to be a treatment plan. It is not an alternative to psychotherapy, but rather a tool to keep in your toolbox. If you experiencing significant psychological distress, please reach out to a mental health professional.

First, take a look at our workbook, then dive into the science behind it!

Our Workbook

The workbook will offer high school seniors practice with engaging in different patterns of activation in their SMS to increase their sense of coherence and wellness. The workbook will consist of carefully crafted prompts and activities that users will work through.

These activities are designed to:

prompt reflection on positive memories and turn them into actionable steps for future growth
foster feelings of gratitude
prompt reflection on cognitions, strengths, and behaviors
guide the creation of and engagement with physical objects that highlight strengths
guide physical activity to calm the mind
prompt journaling about and reflecting on the sense of self

At the end of the workbook, there will be a short explanation of the purpose of engaging in each activity, its desired outcome, and the science behind it. Dive into our workbook and watch yourself learn, grow, and combat anxiety through the power of your efforts.

Harnessing Memory For Change: A Workbook For High School Seniors

Click on the image to the right to open the workbook!

Learn more about the science behind our workbook...

How does memory affect wellness?

Did you know that memory and mental health and wellness is connected?

For example, self-event connections in autobiographical memory has an impact on well-being (Merrill et al., 2016). Self-event connections are statements made in one's personal narrative that connect their experience to the self. For example, "I am a hard-working person," is a self-event connections. Positive self-event connections in narratives creates a sense of well-being and is linked to positive self perception, lower psychological distress, and growth. However, negative self-event connections are linked to psychological and identity distress. It is important to build positive narratives in the autobiographical memory system.

As we create autobiographical memories, they take on a narrative form that helps us have a cohesive understanding of our lived experience. Narrative coherence, which is the degree at which people can tell stories about their experiences, also influences well being (Vanaken et al., 2022). If someone has narrative coherence, they are able to convey the content and meaning of their narrative's events cohesively to others. Positive narrative coherence, which indicates coherent narration about life experiences, is associated with greater well-being, less depression and anxiety, and more positive social interactions. Therefore, the ability to construct coherent narratives in our autobiographical memories is essential to our well-being.

Additionally, memory is designed to naturally support our well being by allowing us to be flexible and adaptive in the ever changing world (Ditta & Storm, 2018). For example, although we are often prone to forgetting, when we forget things we are able to prevent our minds from being overloaded with information and avoid narrow, fixated thinking. Our memory system allows our mind to wander in order to expose ourselves to novel ideas or information is blocked from our recollection in memory, which allows us to narrow our focus on only relevant information. We incorporate new information unconsciously and experience recurring memories of unfinished problems. Whether you are aware of it or not, our memory system provides us the flexibility to flourish.

Memory Misconceptions

Video References:

Ditta, A. S., & Storm, B. C. (2018). A consideration of the seven sins of memory in the context of creative cognition. Creativity Research Journal, 30(4), 402-417.

Kenett, Y. N. (2024). The role of knowledge in creative thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 1-8

Kleinknecht, E. (2025). Lecture. Unpublished manuscript.

Rubin, D. C. (2005). A basic-systems approach to autobiographical memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 79-83.

Tulving, E. (1993). What is episodic memory?. Current directions in psychological science, 2(3), 67-70.

Van Kesteren, M. T. R., & Meeter, M. (2020). How to optimize knowledge construction in the brain. npj Science of Learning, 5(1), 5.

What is the Self-Memory System (SMS)?

The Self-Memory System (SMS) captures the relationship between memory and the self. Our memory is interconnected with our sense of self, identity, goals, and behavior. The SMS is an interaction between our episodic memory system, the working self, and the long-term self (Conway et al., 2004). We need our SMS to guide our behavior in our unpredictable world.

Within the SMS, there are central control processes: adaptive coherence and adaptive correspondence. Correspondence focuses on specific details and accuracy while recording events into memory. We record these specific details and events from our episodic memories, which correspond to our environment and experiences.

Coherence glosses over the specifics and generalizes events. Although having correspondence in the SMS is necessary to remember events accurately, we need coherence to come to conclusions and feel a sense of consistency, generalizing between the past, present, and future in the ever-changing circumstances of life.

Having too much correspondence makes us hyper- vigilant and requires a lot of energy. You become so stuck in the minute details that it is difficult to plan and detect patterns. Ample correspondence leads to anxiety. We aim to combat this anxiety by increasing coherence in the SMS. You must achieve a balance of adaptive coherence and correspondence to flourish and combat maladaptive patterns of behavior and thought.

Using the SMS to Change Behavior

Our program will shift patterns of activation in the SMS and increase adaptive coherence. We become anxious when we focus too much on small, specific events in the episodic memory rather than more general event memories. General events include generalizations and broader accounts of memories. For high schoolers, general events may be their senior prom or sports season. More specific events in the episodic memory could be hyper focusing on a time you got a lower percentile than desired on your SAT test.

When we can focus on the general rather than specific, we can reduce the amount of correspondence in the SMS and increase coherence. We will provide cues in our workbook and prompt different patterns of activation in the SMS. We will then activate general event memories and promote coherence in the SMS which will mitigate anxious thought.

The Self-Memory System Model

Conceptual Self: organizes autobiographical memory by providing a framework for how a person understands themselves (past self, present self, and future self) over time. It is responsible for creating a coherent sense of identity over time. The conceptual self interacts with the autobiographical knowledge base to create a stable and enduring sense of self.
Autobiographical Knowledge Base: consists of the lifetime period and general event structures that combine with the episodic memory system to create autobiographical memories.
Life Story Schema: consists of broader personal history information than lifetime periods and builds a person's understanding of their personal narratives and identity formed within their culture.
Lifetime periods: Although not shown on the graph, lifetime periods are extended periods of time that are broader than general events and reflect overarching goals and activities such as the years after graduation, or the early years of marriage.
General Events: events with a shared theme linked across brief time periods (a week, a day, a few hours). They are more specific than lifetime periods and can be events such as first-time experiences or exam periods.
Episodic details: specific episodic events stored within the episodic memory system. They are vivid, detailed recollections of specific events.
Adaptive Correspondence: control process in the SMS that focuses on specific details and accuracy while recording events into memory.
Adaptive Coherence: control process in the SMS that glosses over the specifics and generalizes events.

Example of the SMS of a High School Senior

For high school seniors, their autobiographical knowledge base is mostly made up of general events, as they have not experienced many lifetime periods. It is not until seniors transition to another lifetime period, where a new set of goals arises, that their current goals actually becomes integrated in their SMS. For many high school seniors, graduating is the transitional period that completes their current lifetime period. When high school seniors ruminate on the low-level episodic memories they feel anxiety. In order to combat anxious feelings, they must create greater self-coherence in their conceptual self, moving their patterns of activation upwards from adaptive correspondence to coherence. This process will allow them to generalize events and sit in the general event space rather than episodic detail space of the SMS. Focusing on general events rather than specific episodic details promotes imagining and planning for their future self. This change in patterns of activation in the SMS will create a healthier balance between correspondence and coherence and encouraging well-being, which is a process our workbook aims to accomplish.

Intervention Steps

Engage in our Wise Intervention

Our intervention is a wise intervention, meaning that is is an intervention rooted in scientific theory (Walton, 2014). The effectiveness of our program lies in the fact that it is grounded in memory science and targets recursive, or repeated psychological processes. We aim to build on interactions over time to create significant change and reduce anxiety.

Our program will guide users in interrupting patterns of anxiety by changing the patterns of activation in the Self-Memory System. By creating new patterns of activation and slowly mitigating anxious thought, it can help users to manage their emotions and perform tasks more effectively. These successes help prepare them for the next time they experience anxious thought.

Self-Determination Theory

Self-determination Theory explores what motivates our personal growth. SDT discusses how in order to have strong motivation, it must stem from the satisfaction of three areas in your life: competence, autonomy, and relatedness to others. The quality of your motivation is reliant on the balance of these three dimensions. The most powerful motivation is intrinsic, meaning it comes from inside of you. You are exercising your autonomy to work towards your goals. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside influence, and is not as powerful as intrinsic, as there is some level of control over you that is pushing you to act. Without that external pressure, with the choice to act however you wish, you may find yourself demotivated. With our intervention, we want to encourage your sense of autonomy and self-efficacy, provide you with choices of activities that you can practice, and we hope that through reading the science, you can be intrinsically empowered to achieve your goals.

A Creative Process

Our initiative will also engage users in the creative process. Creativity is not a trait, rather it is a process that is distributed, embedded, varied, and multiply realizable (Dietrich, 2024). It is interconnected within standard brain processing. Cognition is an act of creation where we constantly generate new ways of thinking and the Self Memory System is a part of a system that we create. Engaging in more creative behaviors creates different patterns of memory activation. Through engaging in different patterns of activation, you are creating new schemas, or combining existing ones, to create something more from something less, which is what creativity is. Being creative and innovative is not a trait that you are born with, it is something you must practice. With our workbook, students will be encouraged to practice making creative connections, which can help change patterns of activation in their SMS.

Moreover, self-semantics are an essential part of the SMS, and having more wider and flexible semantic memory knowledge-base is something observed in more creative individuals. They have more opportunities to create connections in their brain. Kenett (2024) highlights that for individuals with narrow semantic memory, to increase the possibilities of creating connections in their brain, they must feed the system to be able to create more connections and practice different patterns of activation. It is all about practice. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes to engage in creativity.

Through the creative process, the sky is the limit in what you can accomplish and create! We hope that our wise intervention is successful in giving you the opportunity to thrive and realize all you are capable of.

About the Authors

Layla Obeidi

Hello, my name is Layla! I am a senior at Pacific University, majoring in Psychology. I plan to continue my education in School Psychology. Through working on this project, I have gained a deeper understanding of memory science, and how it can be utilized to improve wellbeing.

MJ Guevara-Martinez

Hi! I am a junior at Pacific University. I plan on continuing my education in Multicultural Psychology. Learning about memory has allowed me to create a foundation to better understand the effect of positive narration may have on the LGBTQIA+ young adults I plan on working with as a clinician.

Eduardo

Hello! My name is Eduardo, I'm a junior here at Pacific, majoring in Psychology! Throughout this project, it deepened my knowledge of memory science, and techniques that support wellbeing. A takeaway from this project is you don't have to have advanced degrees to want to help individuals.

Perri

Hi my name is Perri and I am a junior studying Psychology and Education. Since I plan to practice clinical psychology, understanding ways to combat maladaptive patterns of thought and behavior by enacting change in the self memory system is of great interest to me.

References

Conway, M. A., Singer, J. A., & Tagini, A. (2004). The self and autobiographical memory: Correspondence and coherence. Social cognition, 22(5: Special issue), 491-529.

Dietrich, A. (2024). Where in the brain is creativity? The fallacy of a creativity faculty in the brain. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1373299.

Ditta, A. S., & Storm, B. C. (2018). A consideration of the seven sins of memory in the context of creative cognition. Creativity Research Journal, 30(4), 402-417.

Kenett, Y. N. (2024). The role of knowledge in creative thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 1-8

Kleinknecht, E. (2025). Lecture. Unpublished manuscript.

Merrill, N., Waters, T. E., & Fivush, R. (2016). Connecting the self to traumatic and positive events: Links to identity and well-being. Memory, 24(10), 1321-1328.

Vanaken, L., Bijttebier, P., Fivush, R., & Hermans, D. (2022). An investigation of the concurrent and longitudinal associations between narrative coherence and mental health mediated by social support. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 13(1), 20438087211068215.

Rubin, D. C. (2005). A basic-systems approach to autobiographical memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 79-83.

Tulving, E. (1993). What is episodic memory?. Current directions in psychological science, 2(3), 67-70.

Van Kesteren, M. T. R., & Meeter, M. (2020). How to optimize knowledge construction in the brain. npj Science of Learning, 5(1), 5.

Walton, G. M. (2014). The new science of wise psychological interventions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(1), 72-82.

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