Chapter 7 Remembering Ourselves

The episodic nature of involuntary autobiographical memories

“…This effect is even more pronounced in people with depression (Williams, 1996) and PTSD (McNally, Lasko, Macklin, & Pitman, 1995;see McNally, 2003, for a review). On the basis of such findings, it has been claimed that generic autobiographical memory is generally more accessible than memories for specific episodes and that the latter are constructed from higher order schematic knowledge, rather than depending on the reactivation of specific traces (e.g., Barclay, 1993;Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000;Neisser, 1982a). However, findings from studies on involuntary autobiographical memories appear to contradict the idea that memories of specific episodes are generally less accessible than generic memories.…”

The Dynamics of Emotions and Life Cycle Identity

“…Nevertheless, different sets of emotions may become relatively more prominent in different life phases, helping the individual to negotiate developmental transition (Abe & Izard, 1999). In addition, memory, which identity requires, may be organized by affect more than by content, as Melanie Klein thought and modern memory experimentalists find (as cited in Barclay, 1993). In addition, memory, which identity requires, may be organized by affect more than by content, as Melanie Klein thought and modern memory experimentalists find (as cited in Barclay, 1993).…”

Review article

“…The accuracy of memories to serve these purposes seems less important than the communities' sense and use of the past in the present. I would argue further that another goal of remembering and forgetting is to establish and maintain a sense of personal coherence to the extent that experiences can be shaped by canonical forms for story telling (Barclay 1992a and b;Barclay andSmith 1992: Gergen andGergen 1988;Langer 1991). Importantly, Middleton and Edwards's Collective Remembering is a sign whose meaning benchmarks a change in the rhetoric of the psychology of memorythe potential significance of this collection cannot be overestimated, in my opinion, especially if psychologists rooted in traditional approaches to the study of memory take seriously the social uses of remembering.…”

“…They are actually reintroducing us to ideas about memory put forward (in psychology) by Bartlett (1923Bartlett ( , 1932, and elaborating Bartlett's notions of constructive and reconstructive memory, and the culturally-shaped 'conventionalization' of memories through the lens of social constructionism by elaborating on the work of social scientists like Halbwachs (1925). Put simply, the interpretative casual-explanatory system described in the editors' own research and in the work of the authors represented in the volume results in the identification of different memory phenomena to be explained: for instance, the social purposes for commemorations (e.g., Billig, in Chapter 4), alternative methods of study (e.g., narrative analysis for analyzing conversational remembering -Middleton and Edwards, Chapter 2), and qualitatively different kinds of theories to explain the phenomenon of interest (e.g., Bakhurst's insightful discussion of Vygotsky's theory of semiotic systems and practical activities [Chapter 11 ], or narrative theory which locates the individual and collective meaning of remembered events in the orienting, referential, and evaluative narrative functions -see Barclay 1992a, since these specific terms were not used by Middleton and Edwards in Chapter 2).…”