The acquisition of the cultural life script: children have a less normative and less sequential concept of the life course than adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT Autobiographical remembering develops in childhood. A late-developing cognitive tool is the cultural life script. The present study aimed at exploring the beginnings of its acquisition and at replicating its acquisition in early adolescence in a Southern-European culture. Study 1 established the Portuguese normative adult cultural life script, against which the cultural life scripts provided by 6- to 16-year-olds could be compared in Study 2. The acquisition of the cultural life script in early to mid-adolescence was confirmed with multiple indicators. In 6- to 8-year olds, life script knowledge was only rudimentary. However, children still agreed highly on a set of mostly non-normative life events which they named as typical for a normal life that are not part of the adult life script. We conclude that children’s non-normative concept of life is less helpful for remembering, narrating, and planning a life than is the adult cultural life script with normative events.