Socio-Historical Context and Autobiographical Memories: Variations in the Reminiscence Phenomenon

Abstract

Three aspects of socio-historical context were discussed with respect to their impact on vivid memories and reminiscence. The first aspect related to ageism. One possible explanation for the reminiscence phenomenon is that older adults recall their youth preferentially because of the higher valuation of youth over the old in the V.S. We found previously that older adults in Japan showed fewer youthful reminiscences than V.S. seniors did, perhaps because of the greater respect for the old there than in the V.S. The Japanese recalled their twenties most frequently while the Americans recalled their teens. Their twenties corresponded to the years during W orId War 11 for most of the people sampled in the study, and many memories were war-related. These data were reanalyzed with all war-related memories removed and the effect held: the average age of memories was older for the Japanese than the V.S. subjects, which is consistent with an ageism hypothesis, but not conclusive support for it. A second aspect of socio-historical context concemed the enduring psychological impacts of major historical events. The influence of World War II on the autobiographical memories of the Japanese was discussed. In addition, a third aspect of socio-historical context was discussed: we found urban vs. rural differences in midwestem V.S. adults in the content of autobiographical memories as categorized canonically. One implication of all three findings was that socio-historical and developmental factors interact in producing the reminiscence phenomenon.