We introduce a new scale that measures how central an event is to a person's identity and life story. For the most stressful or traumatic event in a person's life, the full 20-item Centrality of Event Scale (CES) and the short 7-item scale are reliable (a's of .94 and .88, respectively) in a sample of 707 undergraduates. The scale correlates .38 with PTSD symptom severity and .23 with depression. The present findings are discussed in relation to previous work on individual differences related to PTSD symptoms. Possible connections between the CES and measures of maladaptive attributions and rumination are considered along with suggestions for future research. r

No abstract

A sample of 210 published data sets were assembled that (a) plotted amount remembered versus time, (b) had 5 or more points, and (cj were smooth enough to fit at least 1 of the functions tested with a correlation coefficient of .90 or greater. Each was fit to 105 different 2-parameter functions. The best fits were to the logarithmic function, the power function, the exponential in the square root of time, and the hyperbola in the square root of time. It is difficult to distinguish among these 4 functions with the available data, but the same set of 4 functions fit most data sets, with autobiographical memory being the exception. Theoretical motivations for the best fitting functions are offered. The methodological problems of evaluating functions and the advantages of searching existing data for regularities before formulating theories are considered.At the simplest level, this article is a search for regularities. We ask whether there is one retention function that can describe all of memory, or perhaps a different function for each of a small number of different kinds of memory. At a more abstract level, it is about the role of theory and data in psychological research. Can we most rapidly advance psychology as a science by developing theories at the level that commonly fills psychological journals such as this one, or should we first try to describe phenomena that could constrain theories by establishing robust, preferably quantitative, regularities (Rubin, 1985(Rubin, , 1989(Rubin, , 1995? A balance between these alternatives is needed, and here we argue that to obtain such a balance more description is needed.Retention offers the ideal topic to make this abstract, philoDavid C. Rubin, Department of Experimental Psychology, Duke University; Amy E. Wenzel, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa.We thank John Anderson, Alan Boneau, John Cerella, Herb Crovitz, Sean Hinton, Armando Machado, Bennet Murdock, Matt Serra, Harold Schiffman, John Staddon, Wayne Wickelgren, and John Wixted for their suggestions; Richard Palmer for information about the exponential-power function and its history and use in physics; Michael Reed for mathematical advice and help with derivations; Robert Terry for statistical advice; and Jenny Zervakis for help

No abstract

Theories hold that autobiographical memory serves several broad functions (directive, self, and social). In the current study, items were derived from the theoretical literature to create the Thinking About Life Experiences (TALE) questionnaire to empirically assess these three functions. Participants (N = 167) completed the TALE. To examine convergent validity, they also rated their overall tendency to think about and to talk about the past and completed the Reminiscence Functions Scale (Webster, 1997). The results lend support to the existence of these theoretical functions, but also offer room for refinements in future thinking about both the breadth and specificity of the functions that autobiographical memory serves.Memory research in general, and research on autobiographical memory (AM) in particular, has focused on how, how much, and how accurately, people remember their past. Despite the importance of these aspects of remembering, they do not offer a full palette for understanding human memory. Two relatively understudied areas 91