Themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity in important autobiographical memories: Associations with life periods and life satisfaction.

Abstract

Guided by Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, the present study investigated whether themes of trust, identity, intimacy, and generativity are represented in older adults' most important autobiographical memories. Furthermore, we tested whether these themes are associated with certain life periods and whether having important memories (i.e., life story) that reflect developmental themes and are evaluated as positive is associated with life satisfaction. One hundred and twelve (59.8% female) older adults (61-92 years, M=70.96, SD=6.81) reported up to 15 important autobiographical memories. Participants rated each memory according to the themes of trust/mistrust, identity/confusion, intimacy/isolation, and generativity/stagnation. Using multilevel multinomial logistic regression, we found childhood memories to be associated with trust, memories from participants' youth with identity and intimacy, and adulthood memories with intimacy and generativity. Moreover, participants who rated their autobiographical memories (i.e., life story) as high in reflecting themes and, at the same time, perceived their memories as more positive showed higher levels of life satisfaction. Important autobiographical memories reflect how an individual became the person of today. They refer to age-related themes of psychosocial development and are associated with a person's life satisfaction if they are also considered as emotionally more positive.