Early memories in young adults from separated and non-separated families

Abstract

Two studies investigated the earliest memories of New Zealand European young adults (N = 80, Study 1 and N = 120, Study 2) from separated and non-separated families. Participants' earliest memories were assessed for age, for density (how far apart the memories were, Study 2) and for narrative coherence of the memories. Questionnaires were designed to investigate the role of changes in family structure, for example, in the number of adults in the participants' households and the timing of the parental separation. Study 2 further investigated stress and painful divorce-related feelings as additional variables in adjustment after divorce. No overall differences in age of earliest memory emerged between young adults from separated and non-separated parents. Within the group from separated parents, however, memories were earlier when parents separated early in the child's life (<age 7), which related to having extended family ties and more coherent memory narratives from early childhood (Study 2). Participants from separated families reported earlier but sparser memories when they reported higher levels of stress and painful feelings about the separation. The development of early autobiographical memories and the offset of childhood amnesia are discussed via transition and social interaction theories of autobiographical memory.

Keywords:

• Earliest memories
• Childhood amnesia
• Parental separation
• Transitions
• Social-interaction theory

We want to acknowledge Harlene Hayne for her suggestions and for the benchmarking interpretation, Jessica Johnston for the data collection, Bridget Forsyth for coding, Helen McLagan for proof reading and all the students who took part in the experiment.

We want to acknowledge Harlene Hayne for her suggestions and for the benchmarking interpretation, Jessica Johnston for the data collection, Bridget Forsyth for coding, Helen McLagan for proof reading and all the students who took part in the experiment.

Notes

¹ As in Artioli et al. (2012), earliest memories were initially prompted with regard to the first epoch of infantile amnesia, from birth to age 3. If participants could not recall anything about this time, the researcher moved to the second epoch, from age 3 to age 6. The two epochs were chosen based upon the account that childhood amnesia is a two-stage phenomenon (Jack & Hayne, 2010). However, we were unsuccessful obtaining a second memory for a portion of the sample, so only the earliest memory provided is discussed in Study 1.

² There was also one significant association between the PFAD subscale of self-blame and child's age at parent separation, r(20) = .43, p < .05. The later parents separated, the higher the participants scored on the self-blame construct. No other correlations were significant between PFAD and child's age at parental separation.