Important Personal Events Research Articles

Life-span retrieval of public events: Reminiscence bump for high-impact events, recency for others.

Although substantial evidence exists showing a reliable reminiscence bump for personal events, data regarding retrieval distributions for public events have been equivocal. The primary aim of the present study was to address life-span retrieval distributions of different types of public events in comparison to personal events, and to test whether the existing accounts of the bump can explain the distribution of public events. We asked a large national sample to report the most important, happiest, and saddest personal events and the most important, happiest, saddest, most proud, most fearful, and most shameful public events. We found a robust bump corresponding to the third decade of life for the happiest and the most important positive but not for the saddest and most important negative personal events. For the most important public events, a bump emerged only for the two most frequently mentioned events. Distributions of public events cued with emotions were marked by recency. These results point to potential differences in retrieval of important personal and public events. While the life-script framework well accounts for the findings regarding important personal events, a chronologically retroactive search seem to guide retrieval of public events. Reminiscence bump observed for the two public events suggest that age-at-event affects recall of public events to the degree that the events are high-impact ones that dominate nation's collective memory. Results provide further evidence that the bump is not unitary and points to importance of event type and memory elicitation method with regard to competing explanations of the phenomenon.

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

The aim of this study was to test the cultural life script theory across four different cultures. We collected life scripts from 606 middle-aged and older adult participants in Mexico, Greenland, China, and Denmark, and examined whether key characteristics of life scripts generalize across these cultures. We also collected autobiographical memories of important personal events from the same participants, and coded them for their correspondence with the life scripts to establish whether the life script serves as a guide for autobiographical memory recall. Finally, we compared the life span distribution of life script events with that of the autobiographical memories. Consistent with predictions, a life script was found in all samples and the life span distribution of life script events tracked the life span distributions of personal autobiographical memories retrieved within the same cultures. These findings indicate a central interplay between cultural life scripts and autobiographical memory across disparate cultures.

Depression and attributional style: Interpretations of important personal events.

Depression and attributional style: Interpretations of important personal events.

Depression and attributional style: interpretations of important personal events.

Depression and attributional style: interpretations of important personal events.