Self-defining Memories Research Articles

The retrieval of self-defining memories is associated with the activation of specific working selves

This article presents two studies that investigated the impact of the retrieval of self-defining memories on individuals' sense of self. Participants recalled positive and/or negative self-defining memories, rated memory characteristics and completed measures focusing on different self-aspects. Study 1 found that participants reported higher state self-esteem after recalling a positive memory than after recalling a negative one. They also reported lower negative self-consistency and higher state self-concept clarity and positive self-consistency, but this result became non-significant after controlling for state self-esteem. Study 2 found that participants reported higher state self-esteem, a marginally higher proportion of recreation/exploration, goals and a marginally lower proportion of achievement goals after recalling a positive memory than after recalling a negative one. They also reported a higher proportion of self-cognitions referring to emotional states after recalling memories from which they had not abstracted meaning than after recalling memories from which they had done this. These findings suggest that the retrieval of vivid, emotional and highly self-relevant memories may be accompanied by the activation of specific self-representations or working selves. They also suggest that the experience of memory-related intrusive images may temporarily influence individuals' sense of self. The implications of these findings for clinical practice are discussed.

Recalling positive self-defining memories in depression: The impact of processing mode

Recalling positive memories is a powerful and effective way to improve mood. However, unlike never-depressed individuals, those with current or past depression do not benefit emotionally from positive memory recall. To examine whether rumination is involved in this difficulty, 80 participants (26 currently depressed, 29 recovered depressed, and 25 never depressed) were instructed to recall a positive self-defining memory while in a sad mood. They were then instructed to think about their memory, adopting either an abstract or concrete processing mode. Never-depressed and recovered depressed participants experienced improved mood after memory recall, regardless of processing mode. However, for depressed individuals neither an abstract nor a concrete processing mode produced emotional benefit. These findings suggest that a complex relationship exists among processing mode, memory type, and depressive status, and indicate that the way in which individuals process positive emotional material may have important consequences for treatment.

Reflecting on a Difficult Life

We examined narrative processes of identity development as they related to desistance from delinquent behavior in a sample of vulnerable adolescents. Building on a robust theoretical and empirical foundation in the field of narrative identity, we examined processes of meaning-making and agency in relation to desistance. Thirty-one adolescents were interviewed to elicit commonly studied autobiographical memories (e.g., turning points, self-defining memories). Interviews were coded for meaning-making and agency. Results showed that desistance was related to agency, but not meaning-making, which was related to higher numbers of past delinquent behaviors. Results are interpreted in terms of the possibilities for desistance and growth from a narrative perspective and are situated within a structural and cultural perspective on the development of vulnerable youth.

Age, memory type, and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory: Findings from an Italian sample

The present research explored differences in phenomenology between two types of memories, a general self-defining memory and an earliest childhood memory. A sample of 76 Italian participants were selected and categorised into two age groups: 20–30 years and 31–40 years. The Memory Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ) was administered, taking note of latency and duration times of the narratives. Consistent with the literature, the self-defining memory differed significantly from the earliest childhood memory in terms of phenomenology, with the recency of the memory associated with more intense phenomenological experience. The self-defining memory took longer to retrieve and narrate than the earliest childhood memory. Meaningful differences also emerged between the two age groups: Participants in their 30s rated their self-defining memory as more vivid, coherent, and accessible than participants in their 20s. According to latency findings, these differences suggest an expanded period of identity consolidation for younger adults. Further applications of the MEQ should be carried out to replicate these results with other samples of young adults.

What Do We Know When We Know a PersonAcross Contexts? Examining Self‐Concept Differentiation at the Three Levels of Personality

Previous research examining self-concept differentiation (SCD) has been characterized by (a) a focus on behavioral traits and (b) the conflation of mean-level and inter-contextual differentiation. In two studies, we considered non-conflated measures of SCD at the three levels of personality description in relation to adjustment. In Study 1, participants completed measures of adjustment, rated their behavioral tendencies (dispositional traits), produced a list of goals (characteristic adaptations), and recalled a self-defining memory (life narratives), from within professional and personal domains. In Study 2, the procedure was modified: Participants reporting either low or high levels of adjustment subsequently rated their behavioral traits, provided a list of goals, or produced a self-defining memory, from five contexts. In Study 1, adjustment related positively to SCD at the level of characteristic adaptations but negatively to SCD at the level of life narratives. In Study 2, well-adjusted participants exhibited a greater degree of SCD at the level of characteristic adaptations but a greater degree of thematic consistency at the level of life narratives, relative to those low in adjustment. These results highlight the dynamic nature of SCD across levels of personality and align with the notion that differentiation represents virtue and vice.

Self‐Defining Memories, Scripts, and the Life Story: Narrative Identity in Personality and Psychotherapy

An integrative model of narrative identity builds on a dual memory system that draws on episodic memory and a long-term self to generate autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memories related to critical goals in a lifetime period lead to life-story memories, which in turn become self-defining memories when linked to an individual's enduring concerns. Self-defining memories that share repetitive emotion-outcome sequences yield narrative scripts, abstracted templates that filter cognitive-affective processing. The life story is the individual's overarching narrative that provides unity and purpose over the life course. Healthy narrative identity combines memory specificity with adaptive meaning-making to achieve insight and well-being, as demonstrated through a literature review of personality and clinical research, as well as new findings from our own research program. A clinical case study drawing on this narrative identity model is also presented with implications for treatment and research.

The influence of normal aging and Alzheimer's disease in autobiographical memory highly related to the self.

Autobiographical memory (AM) comprises autobiographical episodes (AE) and personal semantics (PS). Self-defining memories (SDMs) represent peculiar memories highly relevant to personality processes and constitute crucial source for the self. To date, no research has compared normal and pathological age-related changes in the AE and PS aspects of AM (including SDMs) and their link with the self. Young adults, older adults, and patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) were asked to retrieve 10 AEs, 10 PSs, and 10 SDMs based on identical cue-words and to complete a subjective self-concept scale measuring the degree of certainty and the valence of the self. Memory performance was evaluated for specificity and for emotional valence using quantitative scoring based on standard neuropsychological assessments. Compared with young adults, older adults and AD patients demonstrated a deficit in AE; nevertheless, the three groups performed equally for PS. Remarkably, older adults did not differ from young adults for SDMs characterized by high episodicity (SDMe), unlike AD patients. Concerning the self-concept scale, the valence of the self was more positive in healthy subjects than in AD patients, the latter showing higher scores for the degree of certainty. Self-concept measures were correlated with AM scores, especially SDMe, in young and older subjects but not in AD patients. The implication of these findings is discussed to portray the differences between normal aging and AD concerning the link between AM and the self.

Specificity in autobiographical memory narratives correlates with performance on the Autobiographical Memory Test and prospectively predicts depressive symptoms

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) is an important cognitive marker in depression that is typically measured with the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986). The AMT is widely used, but the over-reliance on a single methodology for assessing AMS is a limitation in the field. The current study investigated memory narratives as an alternative measure of AMS in an undergraduate student sample selected for being high or low on a measure of depressive symptoms (N=55). We employed a multi-method design to compare narrative- and AMT-based measures of AMS. Participants generated personally significant self-defining memory narratives, and also completed two versions of the AMT (with and without instructions to retrieve specific memories). Greater AMS in self-defining memory narratives correlated with greater AMS in performance on both versions of the AMT in the full sample, and the patterns of relationships between the different AMS measures were generally similar in low and high dysphoric participants. Furthermore, AMS in self-defining memory narratives was prospectively associated with depressive symptom levels. Specifically, greater AMS in self-defining memory narratives predicted fewer depressive symptoms at a 10-week follow-up over and above baseline symptom levels. Implications for future research and clinical applications are discussed.

What is the Nature of the Self-defining Memories of Repression-prone Individuals?

The present study investigates the ability to predict various self-defining memory dimensions from individual differences in repressiveness, operationalized by high levels of defensiveness and low levels of trait anxiety. Three self-defining memories from 83 participants (aged between 27 and 43 years) recruited from the general population were analyzed with multilevel models. The main results showed that repression-prone individuals, relative to more adjusted individuals, retrieved more specific self-defining memories and were less likely to extract meanings from their personal memories. Moreover, self-threatening, self-defining memories of repression-prone individuals contained fewer negative emotional words than did those of more adjusted individuals. These results are discussed in light of a recent affect-regulation view of emotional autobiographical memories.

Characteristics of self-defining memory in depression vulnerability

There has been a growing recognition of the role of memory processes in depressive vulnerability, as has been suggested by influential cognitive models of depressive disorders (Teasdale, 1988). In this study recovered depressed (n = 35) and never-depressed (n=49) participants recalled self-defining memories following either a sad or neutral mood induction. In a neutral mood, recovered depressed and never-depressed participants did not differ in terms of the characteristics of the memories that they recalled. However, in a sad mood recovered depressed participants recalled more vivid negative memories and less emotionally intense positive memories than never-depressed participants. This study provides support for aspects of Teasdale's differential activation model and contributes to the growing recognition that depressive disorders involve disturbances in both negative and positive memory processes.

Identity Formation and Autobiographical Memory: Two Interrelated Concepts of Development

� Abstract—The aim of the present paper is to investigate the interdependency among ego-identity status, autobiographical memory and cultural life story schema. The study shows considerable differences between autobiographical memory characteristics and family which is typical for participants (adolescents, M age years = 17.84, SD = 1.18, N = 58), with different ego-identity statuses. Participants with diffused ego-identity status recalled fewer autobiographical memories. Additionally, this group of participants recalled fewer events from their parents' life. Participants with moratorium ego-identity status dated their first recollections to a later age than others, and recalled fewer memories relating to their childhood. Participants with achieved identity status recalled more self-defining memories and events from their parents' life. They used more functions from the autobiographical memory. There weren't any significant differences between the foreclosed identity status group and the others. These findings support the idea of a bidirectional relation between culture, memory and self. Keywords—Autobiographical memory, autobiographical narrative, cultural life script, ego-identity I. INTRODUCTION

Self-defining memories and self-defining future projections in hypomania-prone individuals

Mania and hypomania involve dysfunctional beliefs about the self, others, and the world, as well about affect regulation. The present study explored the impact of these beliefs on self-defining memories and self-defining future projections of individuals with a history of hypomanic symptoms. The main findings showed that a history of hypomanic symptoms was related to enhanced retrieval of memories describing positive relationships and to reduced future projections about relationships, suggesting both a need for social bonding and a striving for autonomy. Moreover, hypomania-prone individuals tended to describe more recent events and to produce self-defining memories with references to tension that were more integrated in their self-structure. All of these findings support the presence of conflicting dysfunctional beliefs and the importance of memories containing references to tension in hypomania.

Self-defining future projections: Exploring the identity function of thinking about the future

The act of projecting oneself into meaningful future events may significantly contribute to a person's sense of self and identity. Yet if the role of memories, in particular self-defining memories (SDMs), in grounding the self is now well established, the identity function of anticipated future events has received comparatively little attention. This article introduces the construct of self-defining future projection (SDFP) to address this issue. Two studies show that people can readily identify significant future events that they frequently think about and that convey core information about who they are as individuals. Furthermore, a person's particular style of constructing SDMs is similarly manifested in SDFPs, suggesting that both types of events can be used to ground the self. Notably, people who display a stronger tendency to extract meaning from their past experiences also reflect more about the potential implications of imagined future events. The results further demonstrate that SDMs and SDFPs both give rise to a strong sense of personal continuity over time and are meaningfully related to self-esteem. Together these findings lend support to the idea that a person's sense of self and identity is in part nourished by the anticipation of significant future events.

Trait Dissociation and the Subjective Affective, Motivational, and Phenomenological Experience of Self-Defining Memories

The present research reports 2 studies that examine the relation between nonpathological trait dissociation and the subjective affect, motivation, and phenomenology of self-defining memories. In Study 1 (N=293), participants retrieved and rated the emotional and motivational experience of a general and a positive and negative achievement-related memory. Study 2 (N=449) extended these ratings to relationship-related memories and the phenomenological experience of the memory. Dissociation was associated with incongruent affect in valenced memories (e.g., positive affect in a negative memory) and memories that were visually incoherent and saturated with power motivation, hubristic pride, and shame, regardless of valence or domain. The present findings demonstrate that autobiographical memories, which integrate emotional, motivational, and phenomenological components, reflect the emotional and motivational processes inherent to dissociation.

Self-defining memories related to illness and their integration into the self in patients with schizophrenia

Although schizophrenia alters the sense of personal identity, little is known about the impact of illness-related autobiographical events on patients' self-representation. We investigated self-defining memories (SDM) in 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 controls to explore how illness-related SDM were integrated into the self at both the cognitive (how participants are able to give a meaning to past events: meaning making) and affective levels (how participants can re-experience past negative events as less negative: redemption and benefaction effects). We found that 26% of freely recalled SDM referred to their illness in patients. Further, while meaning making was impaired in patients for both illness-related and other SDM, illness-related SDM were characterized by a higher redemption and benefaction effects than other SDM. Our results highlight that despite a reduced ability to give a meaning to illness-related episodes, emotional processing seems to allow these events to become positively integrated into patients' life stories. This study provides new findings about the construction of the self in relation to psychotic episodes in patients with schizophrenia. We discuss clinical implications of our results that are helpful to guide cognitive interventions.

Impaired ability to give a meaning to personally significant events in patients with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness affecting sense of identity. Autobiographical memory deficits observed in schizophrenia could contribute to this altered sense of identity. The ability to give a meaning to personally significant events (meaning making) is also critical for identity construction and self-coherence. Twenty-four patients with schizophrenia and 24 control participants were asked to recall five self-defining memories. We assessed meaning making in participants' narratives (spontaneous meaning making) and afterwards asked them explicitly to give a meaning to their memories (cued meaning making). We found that both spontaneous and cued meaning making were impaired in patients with schizophrenia. This impairment was correlated with executive dysfunctions and level of negative symptoms. Our results suggest that patients' difficulties in drawing lessons about past experiences could contribute to explain the lack of coherence observed in their life trajectories and their impaired social adjustment abilities. Implications for psychotherapy are also discussed.

Developing a Systematic Procedure for the Assessment of Self-Defining Memories in Psychodynamic Therapy: Promise and Pitfalls

The innovative approach to assessing autobiographical memory narratives that Singer and Bonalume (2010) demonstrate in their case study of Cynthia is an ambitious expression of integrative psychotherapy research. It brings together the rich research findings on self-defining memories derived from laboratory studies and therapy case analyses, and applies these to the multimodal assessment situation in a psychotherapy program. Further, Singer and Bonalume's case of Cynthia is grounded in a truly "common factor" that is essential to most if not all psychotherapies: patient narrative expression. However, the integration of findings across different research studies still needs further elaboration to clarify and explore when they are consistent and when they are inconsistent with one another. In our commentary we critically assess the following issues associated with Singer and Bonalume's narrative memory coding system and its application to the case of Cynthia: (a) the utilization of narrative analyses for the identification of themes; (b) challenges inherent in establishing criteria for the identification of clinically important autobiographical memory narratives in therapy sessions; (c) the degree of integrative processing that takes place in narrative expression; and (d) the process of formulating inferences based on client narrative expression in assessment interviews versus therapy sessions. The commentary concludes with a discussion of promising future directions for narrative research in psychotherapy.

Further characterisation of self-defining memories in young adults: A study of a Swiss sample

Several individual differences affecting four dimensions of self-defining memories (SDMs)—structure, content, affect, and autobiographical reasoning (Blagov & Singer, 2004; McLean & Fournier, 2008; Singer & Salovey, 1993)—have been observed in young adults (principally in North America). In this study we aimed to investigate the relationships between the different dimensions of SDMs, providing further evidence of the content validity of the Self-Defining Memory task. It was possible to discern two specific profiles from the three SDMs collected from each participant. Almost half the participants retrieved specific SDMs with little autobiographical reasoning and tension; the other participants retrieved an opposite profile, suggesting that there are individual differences in the cognitive and affective processes related to the construction of SDMs. The second aim of the study was to conduct a cross-cultural extension of research on SDMs, using a sample of Swiss young adults. The results were similar to those obtained by previous studies, suggesting a certain cultural invariability. The only difference observed concerned the number of SDMs containing meaning making. Swiss young adults attribute more explicit meanings to their memories than North American young adults, suggesting that they are more engaged in autobiographical reasoning.

The rise and fall of gay: A cultural-historical approach to gay identity development

Research on identity development has paid relatively little attention to the development of marginalised identities such as those of gays and lesbians, whose isolation from the canonical narrative of sexuality may limit the available resources required for establishing a coherent identity. We examined these contested identities in relation to cultural-historical factors that may have played a role in shaping these identities over the past 50 years, and looked at how such factors have impacted the voicing and silencing of gay experiences. Participants (N=251) reported (1) a memory of a cultural event relevant to their sexuality, and (2) a self-defining memory about their sexuality. Those in older cohorts reported cultural memories centred on politics and other external events (e.g., Stonewall riots), and younger cohorts reported more personal memories (e.g., coming out), suggesting that homosexual identities have become less culturally defined, and instead more personally defined. Further, participants of older cohorts reported self-defining events that were predominantly from one private domain (e.g., sex). In contrast, younger participants reported a variety of self-defining events. These results suggest that cultural-historical factors play an important role in defining the developmental pathway of individuals, perhaps especially those who have marginalised identities.

Narrative identity in schizophrenia

This study examined narrative identity in a group of 81 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls through the recall of self-defining memories. The results indicated that patients’ narratives were less coherent and elaborate than those of controls. Schizophrenia patients were severely impaired in the ability to make connections with the self and extract meaning from their memories, which significantly correlated with illness duration. In agreement with earlier research, patients exhibited an early reminiscence bump. Moreover, the period of the reminiscence bump, which is highly relevant for identity development, was characterized by fewer achievements and more life-threatening event experiences, compared with controls. A negative correlation was found between negative symptoms, number of self-event connections and specificity of narratives. Our results suggest that schizophrenia patients have difficulties to organize and extract meaning from their past experiences in order to create coherent personal narratives.