Consistency and social identification: a test-retest study of flashbulb memories collected on the day of the 2016 Brussels bombings

ABSTRACT

Flashbulb memories are consistent and vivid representations of the way people learnt of an important, surprising and consequential event. We had two main aims for this study. Our first aim was to evaluate the consistency of flashbulb memories as accurately as possible (by collecting data on the day and using an interview method at retest) and contrast these findings with other operationalisations such as vividness or confidence but also with event memory. Our second aim was to capitalise on the particular case-study that is Belgium to examine social identification. Within a few hours after the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016, a small sample of students completed a questionnaire on the way they learnt about the event and their knowledge of it. Retest data was obtained fifteen months later, through an in-depth interview. Our results show a relatively high consistency over time as well as high vividness and confidence for their memory of the reception context. We also measured participants’ identification at three levels: local (Brussels) – national (Belgium) – supranational (Europe). In the particular context of the Brussels bombings, social identification with Brussels and Europe correlated with measures of flashbulb memory while social identification with Belgium did not.

KEYWORDS:

• Flashbulb memory
• consistency
• social identity
• vividness
• immediate data collection

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our master students Céline Dehez, Vanessa Perrault and Clara Torbeyns for their help during the data collection phase. Olivier Luminet is a Research Director of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We used the database « PsycInfo » to run this review on November 2020. We search for all scholarly journals with the term “flashbulb” anywhere in the manuscript after January 2010 (we decided than 10 years would give us already a good overview of the recent literature on the subject). Seventy references were found and checked one by one. We removed from this list theoretical articles, literature reviews, comment pieces, errata and articles not on flashbulb memories.

2 On a side note, we want to ascertain that all autobiographical memories, including FBMs, also rely on semantic knowledge about the self and personal scripts.

3 Alternatively, we could have used the percentage of same or similar details calculated on the total number of details provided at T2 (so including new details that were not discussed at T1). However, we decided that it was a less accurate measure of consistency (as new details are neither consistent nor inconsistent). Furthermore, the correlations between this version of the detail consistency measure and other FBM operationalization were similar, although slightly less strong.

4 We also examined each variable separately. We found that this decrease in accuracy is mainly due to lower accuracy at T2 for questions related to the number of people killed at the airport (18.52%) or in the metro (38.89%) and the time of the attacks in the metro (29.63%). With regards to the number of people killed, it is worth noting that on the day of the event, media outlets reported death tolls separately for the two attacks, whereas a few days after, official reports – and thus news media – reported only a combine death toll for both attacks.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS: [Grant Number Research Director].