How Do We Remember Happy Life Events? A Comparison Between Eudaimonic and Hedonic Autobiographical Memories

Autobiographical memories are typically thought of as people's memories for personal life events. Yet, life stories do not exist in isolation; they are shaped by the shared social norms and prescriptions of one's culture as to the order and timing of important transitional events: a cultural life script. An individual's knowledge of their culture's standard life script does not arise from compiled individual life events, but is learned detached from particular personal experiences. When probed, many people's most important personal life events do not match the cultural life script exactly. We note that even some commonly experienced life story events do not match the life script and that their qualitative differences have not been systematically investigated. Why are some common life story events in the cultural life script whereas others are not? To begin exploring these differences, we examined what distinguishes two main types of commonly nominated events within people's personal life stories: events that do overlap with what they conceive of as their culture's life script and events that do not. We offer a secondary data analysis of the Rubin, Berntsen, and Hutson's (2009) life story data, exploring American life story data using the proposed categories of events, the various ratings the authors previously collected, and unused demographic information of interest. Given that this is simply a first step in characterizing the nature of common important life story events, we also provide some speculation for future avenues of investigation and the broader relevance of this work.

Probing life scripts for important life events in a multi-ethnic society

When asked to recall memories from their personal lives in response to word cues, adults older than 40 years report a significantly greater amount of memories from the time when they were 15–30 years old. This phenomenon is called the reminiscence bump. Cultural life story theory is a cultural explanation of the reminiscence bump. According to this account, the reminiscence bump is heavily influenced by the cultural life script – that is, shared expectations about the order and timing of life events in an ordinary life course. Life scripts locate a high proportion of major transitional life events in the second and third decades of life. The main purpose of this article was to review the empirical evidence and validity for the cultural life script theory. First, I describe the reminiscence bump and briefly mention the theories that attempt to explain why it occurs. Second, I describe the cultural life script theory and how the theory is related to autobiographical memories via life story events. Third, I describe the methodology that has been used to test the cultural life script theory. Finally, I provide a reanalysis of seven studies, based on the cultural life script theory conducted in four countries: Denmark, the USA, Turkey, and the Netherlands. As a part of this reanalysis, I examine the degree to which cultural life scripts guide recall of autobiographical memories by comparing the temporal distribution of life events obtained from the cultural life script (the cultural life script bump) and personal life story events (the reminiscence bump). Results of this reanalysis show that all life scripts across cultures have a lifespan distribution resembling the reminiscence bump. Furthermore, the distribution of the events of the life script generated by a group of old Danes in one of the studies resembles the distribution of their own life story events, suggesting that they used the information contained in the life script to retrieve personal memories.

Cultural life scripts have been defined by research as culturally shared expectations and public knowledge of primarily positive life events that occur in sequence in an individual’s prototypical life course. In contrast, life stories are based on personal experiences and life events within one’s own life. They represent autobiographical memories that are part of episodic memory. A mixed methodology was used with two studies. First, the quantitative component investigated whether the life scripts and life stories of deaf individuals who grew up using spoken language in hearing families were similar to the life scripts and life stories of hearing individuals or culturally Deaf individuals. Then, a qualitative narrative analysis captured a more detailed description of how these individuals recalled growing up as an oral deaf person, and later being exposed to sign language and Deaf culture. Both studies highlighted the importance of communication in both positive and negative ways.

Life Script Events and Autobiographical Memories of Important Life Story Events in Mexico, Greenland, China, and Denmark

Reminiscence bump (RB) is the enhanced recollection of autobiographical memories (AMs) from adolescence and young adulthood (approximately 10–30 years of age) by people over 30 years. Several theoretical accounts have been proposed to explain the bump, the most prominent of which are the narrative/identity account, the cultural life script (CLS) account, and the life story account. This doctoral project examined the relative plausibility of those accounts on senior Pakistani nationals and young Malaysian participants. According to the narrative/identity account, the events occurring during adolescence and early adulthood are vital to the development of an individual’s adult identity. Experiences acquired during this period are integrated into an individual’s lifelong narratives, therefore, better recalled later in life. The CLS account emerged to explain some novel findings that there is a bump for positive events but no bump for negative events, which the narrative/identity account could not readily explain. According to this account, every society holds common expectations about the order and timing of important life events that are highly positive but not for those that are highly negative. As society expects that many highly positive events should occur during adolescence and young adulthood, the recollection of AMs is influenced by this expectation, hence, forming the RB. The life story account, which combined the core concepts of the other accounts, suggests that events occurring during adolescence and early adulthood are more novel, distinctive, important, self-relevant, positive, and transitional, therefore, better recalled later in life. Three studies were designed to test the objectives; two studies on Pakistani older adults and one study on Malaysian young adults. Overall, it was concluded that the narrative/identity account seemed to better explain the results of Study 1. RB for both positive and negative life experiences, as observed in Study 2, challenged the core ideas of CLS account. While examining the relative plausibility of the three accounts in Study 3, the narrative/identity account appeared to be a better explanation of the bump than the CLS account and the life story account. However, as the CLS account and the life story account have also received partial support in Study 3, hence, it is suggested that all the three accounts have merits in explaining the bump. The findings can be used to design individualized therapeutic programs for depression, PTSD, autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, alcohol dependence syndrome, memory disorders, and schizophrenia.

Cultural life scripts are shared knowledge about personal events expected to be experienced by individuals within a society and used as a framework for life story narration. Differences in cultural life scripts for individuals with depression and trauma, and their relations to anxiety, stress, and well-being, have not been investigated. Malaysian participants (N = 120) described and rated seven significant events most likely to be experienced by a prototypical infant from their culture, and seven significant events they had experienced or expected to experience in their own life. Participants then answered questionnaires about depression and trauma symptoms and about anxiety, stress, and well-being. The subclinical depression group listed less typical cultural life scripts events, whereas the subclinical post-traumatic stress disorder group listed less positive individual life story events. The findings indicate that, although individuals with depression and trauma possess knowledge of the cultural life scripts, there may be small differences in the cognitive processing of cultural life scripts and individual life story events.

The current study examined earliest memories of young and middle-aged adults in comparison to a recent autobiographical memory and a free-report one from any life phase. These three types of memories were compared in terms of their memory characteristics such as vividness, emotionality, importance, confidence, and rehearsal frequency. A total of 319 young (18-30 years) and 112 middle-aged (40-65 years) adults completed the online survey. Results showed that earliest memories were rated either similar to or lower than later memories in their memory characteristics. More specifically, they received lower ratings than freereport memories in all memory characteristics whereas they did not significantly differ from recent memories only in importance and emotionality. In addition, free-report memories were highest in emotionality, importance and rehearsal frequency whereas recent memories were highest in vividness and confidence ratings. Compared to young adults, middle-aged adults provided higher ratings for all memory characteristics in general, and they further recalled earliest memories from an older age. Finally, the order of reporting the three types of memories (earliest memory first versus recent memory first) was examined with respect to its potential influence on memory characteristics and dating of the recalled memories. Results displayed no significant effect of the reporting order on memory characteristics. Dating of the earliest and free-report memories, however, was significantly affected by the reporting order. The mean age for earliest memories was higher when it was retrieved following the recent memory compared to the reporting order in which earliest memories are retrieved and reported first. Overall, results indicated that earliest memories are not particularly special compared to later memories (e.g., free-report memories) in terms of their memory characteristics, and they are vulnerable to experimental manipulation such as changing the reporting order just like other types of autobiographical memories.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cultural differences exist in event centrality, emotional distress and well-being in a total of 565 adults above age 40 from Mexico, Greenland, China and Denmark. Participants completed questionnaires to determine their level of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms, and of life satisfaction. They also completed event centrality scales for their most positive and most negative life events. Across cultures, participants rated positive events as more central to their identity and life stories, compared with negative events. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of emotional distress rated negative events as more central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. However, a converse pattern was not found for positive events. Finally, participants with higher scores of life satisfaction tended to rate positive events as more central and negative events as less central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. It is concluded that across cultures, positive events are considered more central to identity and life story than negative events and that event centrality ratings tend to be affected in similar ways by higher versus lower levels of emotional distress or well-being.

Life Happens When You Are Young: Reminiscence Bump in Cultural Life Scripts Regardless of Number of Events Elicited

Background: Autobiographical memory enables us to construct a personal narrative through which we identify ourselves. Especially important are memories of formative events. Objective: This study describes autobiographical memories of people who have reached old-old age (85 years and above), studying 3 types of memories of particular impact on identity and adaptation: first memories, pivotal memories and traumatic memories. In this paper, we examine the content, characteristic themes and environments, and structural characteristics of each of the 3 types of memory. Methods: The participants were 26 persons from a larger longitudinal study with an average age of 91 years; half were men and the other half women. The study integrated qualitative and quantitative tools. An open-ended questionnaire included questions about the participants’ life story as well as questions about the 3 types of memories. The responses were rated by 3 independent judges on dimensions of central themes and structural characteristics. Results: First memories had a more positive emotional tone, more references to characters from the participant’s social circle, a stronger sense of group belonging, and a more narrative style than the other types of memories. Pivotal and traumatic memories were described as more personal than first memories. Conclusion: The 3 types of memories reflect different stages in life development, which together form a sense of identity. They present experiences from the past on select themes, which may assist in the complex task of coping with the difficulties and limitations that advanced old age presents. Future research should examine the functional role of those memories and whether they enable the old-old to support selfhood in the challenging period of last changes and losses.

SummaryIt has been proposed that a highly integrated trauma leads to more accessible and vivid memories of the traumatic event, in turn heightening symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. The relationship between the centrality of a traumatic event and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder after the 2011 Oslo bombing attack was investigated in the present study. A high degree of perceived centrality was associated with higher symptom levels of posttraumatic stress as shown in the results. This association was found after controlling for gender, age and educational background. The relationship between types and level of trauma exposure, peritraumatic reactions and centrality of event was also investigated in the present study. Higher levels of trauma exposure and peritraumatic reactions were associated with higher levels of centrality of event as shown in the results. When a traumatic event becomes a reference point in the individual's life story and central to their identity, this is associated with an increased risk of symptomatology as suggested in the findings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Autobiographical reasoning is closely related to the development of normative ideas about life as measured by the cultural life script. The acquisition of a life script is an important prerequisite for autobiographical reasoning because children learn through the life script which events are expected to go into their life story, and when to expect certain events in life. Thus, the cultural life script not only helps organize autobiographical memories, but it also guides expectations for our future life stories. Therefore, the cultural life script should be considered the overarching principle of organizing autobiographical memories across the lifespan.

A total of 59 older Danes recorded five life story memories. They divided their life story into chapters and provided their age for the start and end of each chapter. Life story memories were coded for whether they were placed at the start or end of chapters and for their correspondence to the cultural life script. Chapters and life story memories showed a bump in terms of an increased recall of life story memories and chapters between ages 6 and 30. Chapter start and end memories, more frequently than other memories, referred to prominent cultural life script events. The bump was significantly stronger for memories that referred to both prominent cultural life script events and chapter starts or ends. The findings suggest that the cultural life script helps to identify beginning and ends of chapters in autobiographical memory, and that both the cultural life script and organisation in terms of chapters influence the recall of life story memories and may help to explain the bump.

This study explores the relationship between cultural life scripts and actual life stories of Czechs and Slovaks, building on prior research by Štěpánková et al. (2020. Czech and Slovak life scripts: The rare case of two countries that used to be one. Memory, 28(10), 1204–1218) that examined the semantic knowledge of an ideal life within the Czech and Slovak cultures (cultural life scripts). The current study investigates the extent to which individual life stories align with or diverge from these cultural life scripts. A clear reminiscence bump – a concentration of positive memories between the ages of 15 and 30 – was observed in participants' life stories. The impact of most important life events was analysed using the Transitional Impact Scale (TIS). Results showed that positive cultural script-consistent events yielded the highest TIS scores, while unique, script-divergent negative events had greater impact on psychological dimension of the TIS than their positive counterparts. These findings are discussed in the context of existing literature, highlighting their theoretical implications and alignment with prior research.