Living in history and living by the cultural life script: How older Germans date their autobiographical memories

Abstract

This study examines predictions from two theories on the organisation of autobiographical memory: Cultural Life Script Theory which conceptualises the organisation of autobiographical memory by cultural schemata, and Transition Theory which proposes that people organise their memories in relation to personal events that changed the fabric of their daily lives, or in relation to negative collective public transitions, called the Living-in-History effect. Predictions from both theories were tested in forty-eight-old Germans from Berlin and Northern Germany. We tested whether the Living-in-History effect exists for both negative (the Second World War) and positive (Fall of Berlin Wall) collectively experienced events, and whether cultural life script events serve as a prominent strategy to date personal memories. Results showed a powerful, long-lasting Living-in History effect for the negative, but not the positive event. Berlin participants dated 26% of their memories in relation to the Second World War. Supporting cultural life script theory, life script events were frequently used to date personal memories. This provides evidence that people use a combination of culturally transmitted knowledge and knowledge based on personal experience to navigate through their autobiographical memories, and that experiencing war has a lasting impact on the organisation of autobiographical memories across the life span.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• cultural life script
• transition theory
• memory dating
• the Second World War

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Ulmann Lindenberger, director of the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin (MPI) for hosting Annette Bohn during data collection in Berlin. For assistance with participant recruitment in Berlin we thank the Center for Lifespan Psychology as well as the teachers at the Victor-Gollancz-Volkshochschule Steglitz-Zehlendorf. For assistance with participant recruitment in Northern Germany, we thank Karla and Bernhard Klein. Thanks to Jonathan Koppel for useful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Finally, we thank all our participants for sharing their memories with us.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Dutch-Canadians emigrated from the Netherlands to Canada after WWII.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation [grant number DNRF93] and by a stipend of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Agency) to Annette Bohn.