When a person fosters an experience, good or bad, the experience changes into a memory. We use these experiences and memories to learn about a situation, to learn about ourselves, or to further our understanding of the world. We function as the sum of our memories.

As we grow, the events that happen to us influence the way we perceive situations from there on out. When a negative experience happens, we remember the event as difficult to handle and painful. To avoid experiencing negative feelings again, we refer back to our memories as a guideline of how not to act. When a positive experience happens, we want to experience those feelings again and thus use the memories of the positive experience to try and recreate it. Memories influence the way we act depending on how an event affected us. We act differently in situations that our memories tell us will cause us discomfort or joy if we faced the situation before. We act on a more educated perspective.

By using memories to determine how we act in a given situation, our perspective of the situation changes along with how we act. We start associating experiences with particular types of behaviors and different types of people. Our memories help us piece together what we like and dislike from these associations. In the long run, our memories influence how we view our surroundings and we devise plans on how we want to pursue our next step. Overall, using memories to help us avoid negative events and experience positive events shape our feelings and personality.