Event centrality of positive and negative autobiographical memories to identity and life story across cultures

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cultural differences exist in event centrality, emotional distress and well-being in a total of 565 adults above age 40 from Mexico, Greenland, China and Denmark. Participants completed questionnaires to determine their level of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms, and of life satisfaction. They also completed event centrality scales for their most positive and most negative life events. Across cultures, participants rated positive events as more central to their identity and life stories, compared with negative events. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of emotional distress rated negative events as more central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. However, a converse pattern was not found for positive events. Finally, participants with higher scores of life satisfaction tended to rate positive events as more central and negative events as less central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. It is concluded that across cultures, positive events are considered more central to identity and life story than negative events and that event centrality ratings tend to be affected in similar ways by higher versus lower levels of emotional distress or well-being.

Psychological and clinical correlates of the Centrality of Event Scale: A systematic review

“…Findings from studies with clinical populations show patterns similar to the overall patterns reported here (e.g., Rubin, Dennis, & Beckham, 2011), but more work is needed. Cross-cultural findings suggest that the positive association between event centrality and symptoms of PTSD and depression replicates, although that mean ratings of event centrality differ across cultures (Zaragoza Scherman et al, 2015). Additional studies are needed to examine these interactions.…”

Characteristics of personally important episodic memories, counterfactual thoughts, and future projections across age and culture

“…Previous research on centrality of event has indeed shown that older adults in the US considered the positive events in their lives to be more central to their life story and identity than the negative events (Berntsen, Rubin, & Siegler, 2011). This was replicated with adults over 40 years of age in China, Denmark, Greenland, and Mexico (Zaragoza Scherman, Salgado, Shao, & Berntsen, 2015). However, these studies did not include a comparison group of younger adults.…”

Is the centralization of potentially traumatic events always negative? An expansion of the Centrality of Events Scale

“…Centrality of the positive event was uniformly high regardless of PTSD symptom levels. In contrast, all four groups showed higher rates of centrality for their negative events when PTSD symptoms were high than when PTSD symptoms were low (Zaragoza Scherman et al, ). In each of these studies, it remains unclear whether all participants are centralizing negative events in negative ways and positive events in positive ways.…”

“…More recently, researchers have begun using the CES to assess centrality of positive life events (Bernard, Whittles, Kertz, & Burke, ; Boals, ; Zaragoza Scherman, Salgado, Shao, & Berntsen, ), often with comparisons to traumatic, stressful, or negative life events. Such research has shown that event centrality scores for negative events, but not positive events, are associated with psychopathology, particularly depressive symptoms, PTSD symptoms (Bernard et al, ; Boals, ), general anxiety symptoms (Bernard et al, ), and dissociation (Boals, ).…”

“…This line of research also suggests that centrality of a positive event was associated with resilience (Bernard et al, ). Zaragoza Scherman et al () examined centralization of participants' most positive and most negative events. Centrality of the positive event was uniformly high regardless of PTSD symptom levels.…”