Generation identity and the reminiscence bump: Memories for public and private events

Abstract

Participants ranging in age from 30 to 70 years free-recalled when they had learned public and private items of news. When responses were plotted in terms of age of participant at time of encoding, it was found that peak recall for public items of news was in the period when participants were aged 10 to 19 years whereas peak recall of private items of news occurred in the period when participants were aged 20 to 29 years. A second study confirmed this pattern of an early reminiscence bump for public news. It is proposed that these two components of the reminiscence bump reflect, respectively, a period of formation of generation identity in the second decade of life and a period of formation of intimate relationships in the third decade.