This study examined how immigration affects the organization and contents of autobiographical memory. The 40 middle-aged individuals who participated in this study were at least in their 30s when relocating from China to Canada. The participants retrieved personal memories in response to neutral cue words, thought aloud as they dated the retrieved memories, assessed the phenomenal properties of retrieved memories, and finally rated the transitional impacts of their relocation to Canada. We observed a robust Living-through-Immigration effect (i.e. frequent reference to relocation in event dating) and a large Immigration Bump. We also confirmed that relocation to Canada was perceived to be a major life transition. Regardless of when they occurred, the recalled events received roughly same mid-scale ratings on importance, self-relevance, distinctiveness and emotional intensity. The findings support the transition-theory prediction that important personal transitions should affect autobiographical memory in much the same way that important collective transitions do.

Source memory refers to mental processes of encoding and making attributions to the origin of information. We investigated schematic effects on source attributions of younger and older adults for different schema-based types of items, and their schema-utilization of judgments of learning (JOLs) in estimating source memory. Participants studied statements presented by two speakers either as a doctor or a lawyer: those in the schema-after-encoding condition were informed their occupation only before retrieving, while those of schema-before-encoding were presented the schematic information prior to study. Immediately after learning every item, they made judgments of the likelihood for it to be correctly attributed to the original source later. In the test, they fulfilled a task of source attributing. The results showed a two-edged effect of schemas: schema reliance improved source memory for schema-consistent items while impaired that for schema-inconsistent items, even with schematic information presented prior to encoding. Compared with younger adults, older adults benefited more from schema-based compensatory mechanisms. Both younger and older adults could make JOLs based on before-encoding schematic information, and the schema-based JOLs were more accurate in predicting source memory than JOLs made without schema support. However, even in the schema-after-encoding condition, older adults were able to make metacognitive judgments as accurately as younger adults did, though they did have great impairments in source memory itself.

In this article, we report the results of a survey of North American adults (n = 1,215) conducted between March 24 and 30, 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents completed the COVID-TIS (Transitional Impact Scale-Pandemic version) and the 21-item Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), indicated their level of COVID-infection concern for themselves and close others, and provided demographic information. The results indicated: (a) during its early stage, the pandemic produced only moderate levels of material and psychological change; (b) the pandemic produced mild to moderate levels of psychological distress; (c) respondents who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic experienced more change and more psychological distress than those who did not, and (d) younger respondents and less well-educated ones experienced more psychological distress than older respondents. Unexpectedly, (e) respondents indicated that they were more concerned that friends and family members would become infected with COVID-19 than that they would be. We conclude by speculating that these results are driven less by the immediate changes brought about by the pandemic and more by uncertainty concerning its long-term economic and social impact.

The present study examined the beliefs about two types of important life transitions: transitions that are consistent with the cultural life script (e.g., getting married) and transitions that diverge from it (e.g., relocating). Data were collected from two conditions: individuals in the experienced condition only responded to transitions they had experienced; individuals in the hypothetical condition provided ratings only for transitions they had not experienced. Participants rated the likelihood and typical age of occurrence, importance, transitional impact, and valence for an individualized set of condition-appropriate events. We found that script-consistent events were considered more normative and positive than script-divergent events. The two types of events, however, differed little in terms of importance or transitional impact. We conclude by arguing that although script-consistent and script-divergent transitions have much in common from a mnemonic perspective, the distinction is still warranted in the context of lifetime planning and evaluation.