Cultural variation in the correlates of flashbulb memories: An investigation in five countries

Abstract

Flashbulb memory (FBM) refers to the vivid memory for the context of learning about a public news event. Past research has identified a number of factors that influence the formation of FBM, such as the importance of the event, the experience of intense emotions, and the amount of post-event rehearsal. Although such factors may be universal in predicting FBM formation across cultures, they may differentially impact FBM given different cultural belief systems and practices. In the present study we investigated the moderating effect of culture for various predictors of FBM in five countries: China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA. Results indicated that the effects of national importance and rehearsal of the reception context were consistent across cultures. In contrast, culture moderated the effects of personal importance, emotionality, surprise, and event rehearsal. In all cases the effects of these variables were significantly smaller in the Chinese sample.

Keywords:

• Flashbulb memory
• Culture
• Autobiographical memory
• Public event memories

Notes

¹Some authors argue that FBMs are also highly accurate. However, we make no claims about the veracity of these memories.

²The present study was part of a larger project on memories for public events across cultures. Wang et al. (2009) reported results pertaining to cultural differences in the types of events recalled, whereby US participants were less likely to recall international events compared with individuals from the other cultures. Wang and Aydin (2009) reported results pertaining to lifetime retrieval curves showing that for all groups a reminiscence bump was observed.