Young Soccer Players' Reports of a Tournament Win or Loss: Different Emotions, Different Narratives

This research examined the effects of differences in the emotions associated with an event on participants' reports of the experience. Forty-eight 10-year-old participants in a soccer tournament reported their final competition shortly after the game and 5 weeks later. Although all children reported the same event, members of winning vs. losing teams had very different emotional experiences that were associated with differences in their event reports. Members of winning teams reported a greater proportion of central information and provided more cohesive narratives than did members of losing teams, whose narratives included relatively more interpretation of the event. Few differences in elicited recall were observed. Although the delay did not affect the between-group differences in the narratives, the players on the winning and losing teams increasingly diverged over time in their ratings of the quality of play. The implications of participants' interpretations of experiences on long-term remembering are discussed.