The reminiscence bump in the temporal distribution of the best football players of all time: Pelé, Cruijff or Maradona?

Abstract

The reminiscence bump is the tendency to recall more autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood than from adjacent lifetime periods. In this online study, the robustness of the reminiscence bump was examined by looking at participants' judgements about the quality of football players. Dutch participants (N = 619) were asked who they thought the five best players of all time were. The participants could select the names from a list or enter the names when their favourite players were not on the list. Johan Cruijff, Pelé, and Diego Maradona were the three most often mentioned players. Participants frequently named football players who reached the midpoint of their career when the participants were adolescents (mode = 17). The results indicate that the reminiscence bump can also be identified outside the autobiographical memory domain.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• Reminiscence bump
• Adolescence
• Identity
• Episodic memory

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to S.J. (Grant 446-06-031). Steve Janssen is now at the Department of Psychology, Hokkaido University.

Notes

¹ If one compares the career midpoint of the 10 most frequently mentioned football players (who represent 64.3% of the data) with their performances at the World Cup or European Cup, the career midpoint seems a reasonable approximation for the peak of a player's career. Johan Cruijff (1974) reached in 1974 the final of the World Cup, Pelé (1967) won in 1958, 1962, and 1970 the World Cup, Diego Maradona (1987) won in 1986 the World Cup, Marco van Basten (1988) won in 1988 the European Cup, Zinedine Zidane (1997) won in 1998 the World Cup, Dennis Bergkamp (1996) reached in 1998 the semifinal of the World Cup, Franz Beckenbauer (1974) won in 1974 the World Cup, Eusebio (1968) reached in 1966 the semifinal of the World Cup, and Romario (1997) won in 1994 the World Cup. Lionel Messi (2007) is at this moment only 23 years old and has not reached further than the quarter-finals at the World Cup.