Twenty-One - Autobiographical Memory and the Narrative Self over the Life Span

Abstract

This chapter highlights two areas of growing contemporary interest in the psychology of aging: autobiographical memory and the narrative self. The recall of autobiographical memories over the life span is a dynamic process. Older people remember relatively more memories from adolescence and early adulthood, than from other periods of life. In general, people also remember more positive events than negative events over the life span. The affect of past and future perspective changes with age―young adults recall relatively more negative events from their past than they expect from the future, whereas older people recall their past more positively and view their future more negatively. Evidence shows that memories recalled by men are more oriented toward work and women's memories toward health and family. The recall of autobiographical memory is a dynamic process related to age and gender.