History, culture and cognition: Towards a dynamic model of social memory

Abstract

The term social memory refers to the dynamic interplay between history, culture and cognition. At the level of the individual, three sources of knowledge: history, collective memory and individual experience combine to create a subjective view of historical reality, a common sense narrative that is often expressed with identity objectives and within an autobiographical context. This model of social memory, which is informed by social representations theory, makes a distinction between (i) collective memory, which is resistant to change, and (ii) representations of the past discussed and disseminated within a social milieu, which have the potential to evolve into new or altered perspectives, particularly when they are vulnerable to generational shift.