Adolescents' meaningful memories reflect a trajectory of self-development from family over school to friends

Abstract

The relationship between autobiographical memories and self is important in many theories. Promising recent approaches from cross-cultural psychology use a concept of "self-construal", in which reference to others can be as important as indicators of autonomy. However, these studies typically ask for earliest memories only, whereas we would expect the roles of others to change over the course of development. Taking as a premise that adolescents' life unfolds in three concurrent settings -family, school, and friendship -we asked 66 adolescents (22 Norwegians in Study 1, and 40 Slovaks in Study 2) for a meaningful memory from each of these settings. The memories they selected from the family setting were oldest, school memories intermediate and friend memories most recent, suggesting a developmental trajectory in which the three settings have changed in importance. Memories from the friendship setting were also most frequently on their mind. Furthermore, family memories referred most to other people, friend memories marginally less and school memories least, suggesting different contributions of these settings to self-construal. We conclude that characteristics of adolescents' meaningful memories reflect shifting settings' dominance during development and complementary roles of family, school and friends for adolescents' current self-construal.

Toward the Model of Independence

“…In this sense, Wang (2006Wang ( , 2008Wang & Ross, 2005) has provided evidence that the activation of autonomy or relatedness aspects of self-construal in Euro American, Asian (Taiwanese), and bi-cultural (Asian American) participants lead to the retrieval of personal memories focused on the individual versus others in accordance with the activated aspect of self-construal. In a similar vein, Antalíková, Hansen, Gulbrandsen, de la Mata, and Santamaría (2011) found domain-specific differences in Norwegian adolescents' memories across three different domains (family, school, and friends). Their results evidenced a higher degree of autonomy and less relatedness in the memories from the school context, compared with those from the other two settings.…”

Earliest autobiographical memories in college students from three countries: Towards a situated view

“…As shown by Wang and Ross (2005), contextual demands can 'prime' independent and interdependent dimensions of self-construal to a different degree. In this vein, a recent study by Antalíková et al (2011) has evidenced differences in the predominant dimensions of self-construal (autonomy vs. relatedness) in adolescents' memories, depending on the domain of experience (family, school or friends) to which these memories refer. Again, more research is needed to document variations in dimensions such as agency and relatedness in memories from different cultural life domains.…”

A review of adolescent autobiographical memory and the implications for assessment of unaccompanied minors’ refugee determinations

“…The reviewed research indicates that people from individualistic cultures provide longer and more detailed memories which focus on emotions, intentions and personal beliefs. In contrast, people from interdependent cultures provide shorter memories which focus more on social events, rather than individual experiences (Antalikova, Hansen, Gulbrandsen, De La Mata, & Santamaria, 2011). For example, Chinese adolescents process their memories holistically, integrating information, focusing on connections between events and so recall memories as more general events (e.g.…”