ABSTRACT
FBMs result from consequential events that disrupt personal or cultural plans. This simple position, however, fails to address several factors inherent to FBMs. This chapter explores a three-dimensional model of consequentiality, organized as interactions between opposing event factors: self vs. other, social vs. physical, and pleasant vs. aversive events. We argue that these conditions continually select event memories for retention making the “special mechanism” argument usually employed in the FBM debates simply wrong-headed. A study of people’s recall on discovering the election of America’s first black president is presented to test the valence dichotomy.
