Life scripts help to maintain autobiographical memories of highly positive, but not highly negative, events

Rubin, David C.; Berntsen, Dorthe

doi:10.3758/bf03196077

Cited by 304 publications

(403 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The relation we found between frequency in the life script and accessibility in recognition and recall supports, in a laboratory setting, Berntsen and Rubin's (2004) assertions, based on autobiographical memory data, that the life script heightens the mnemonic accessibility of events falling within it (see also Rubin & Berntsen, 2003). The fact that we could not experimentally manipulate events' frequency in the life script leaves open the possibility that another factor common to high-frequency life script events, other than their frequency in the script, underlies their memorability.…”

Section: Primary Findingssupporting

confidence: 85%

“…For instance, Berntsen and Rubin found that the age distribution of life script events features a bump between the ages of 15 and 30 as well. Furthermore, Rubin and Berntsen (2003) found that exceptions to the bump in autobiographical memory tracked with exceptions to the bump in the life script: Just as they found a bump, in a Danish sample, in the age distribution of memories for positive events (e.g., when people reported being most proud or most in love)…”

Section: The Cultural Life Scriptmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Rubin's claims that the cultural life script structures recall from autobiographical memory (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004;Rubin & Berntsen, 2003), by showing that the life script serves as a cognitive schema in its effect on memory and its phenomenological properties. Below, we briefly take up each of these secondary points.…”

Section: Complementary Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The cultural life script as cognitive schema: How the life script shapes memory for fictional life stories

Koppel

Berntsen

2013

Memory

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We tested, across three studies, the effect of the cultural life script on memory and its phenomenological properties. We focused, in particular, on the mnemonic effects of both schema-consistency and frequency in the life script. In addition to testing recognition (in Study 1) and recall (in Studies 2 and 3), we also collected remember/know judgments for remembered events (in Studies 1 and 2) and memory for their emotional valence (in Study 2). Our primary finding was that, across all three studies, higher-frequency events were more memorable than lower-frequency events, as measured through either recognition or recall. We also attained three additional, complementary effects: First, schema-inconsistent events received remember ratings more often than schema-consistent events (in Study 2, with a trend to this effect in Study 1); second, where an event's emotional valence was inconsistent with the life script, memory for its valence was reconstructed to fit the script (in Study 2); and, third, intrusions in recall were disproportionately for life script events (in Study 3), though that was not the case in recognition (in Study 1). We conclude that the life script serves as a cognitive schema in how it shapes memory and its phenomenological properties. Memory, 22, December , available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080December /09658211.2013 4 This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis inThe Cultural Life Script as Cognitive Schema: How the Life Script Shapes Memory for Fictional Life StoriesThe cognitive schema (i.e., a mental structure that organizes one's knowledge and assumptions about the world) represents one of the oldest and most influential concepts in cognitive psychology (see Neisser, 1976, for an overview of early work on schemata). Schemata have been found to structure cognition across a range of contexts, including, and most importantly for the present purpose, to play a role in structuring memory. Bartlett (1932) was the first investigator to bring widespread attention to the effect of schemata on recall, with his investigations demonstrating that, in recounting a Native American folk tale, English participants reconstructed the story to better fit the Western schema of a typical narrative structure (see Bergman & Roediger, 1999, for a more recent replication of Bartlett's findings). Much of the early experimental work on the cognitive underpinnings of memory likewise examined the role of schemata (see for example, Anderson & Pichert, 1978;Mandler & Johnson, 1977; Sulin & Dooling, 1974).In the present investigation, we followed in the vein of a more recent experimental tradition on the influence of schemata on memory. December , available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080December /09658211.2013 5 which had not actually been in the room. Brewer and Treyens interpret their findings for correct recognition and recall as indicating that schemata facilitate retrieval of items which are consistent with a given schema. However, in a su...

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Section: Primary Findingssupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: The Cultural Life Scriptmentioning

confidence: 93%

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The cultural life script as cognitive schema: How the life script shapes memory for fictional life stories

Koppel

Berntsen

2013

Memory

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“…lives were (Berntsen & Rubin, 2002;Fitzgerald, 1988Fitzgerald, , 1996Rubin & Berntsen, 2003), or when they recalled personal events with the help of cue words (Galton, 1879;Rubin et al, 1986). It has been found in the distributions of men and women (Niedzẃienśka, 2003;Rubin, Schulkind, & Rahhal, 1999) and in the distributions of middle-aged and older adults (Hyland & Ackerman, 1988).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The final explanation for the occurrence of the reminiscence bump is the life scripts account (Berntsen & Rubin, 2002, 2004Rubin & Berntsen, 2003). Life scripts are culturally shared expectations about the order and timing of life events in an idealized life course, which are used to process life stories (also see Bohn, 2010;Bohn & Berntsen, 2011;Rubin, Berntsen, & Hutson, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reminiscence Bump in the Temporal Distribution of the Best Football Players of All Time: Pelé, Cruijff or Maradona?

Janssen

Rubin

Conway

2012

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The reminiscence bump is the tendency to recall more autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood than from adjacent lifetime periods. In this online study, the robustness of the reminiscence bump was examined by looking at participants' judgements about the quality of football players. Dutch participants (N = 619) were asked who they thought the five best players of all time were. The participants could select the names from a list or enter the names when their favourite players were not on the list. Johan Cruijff, Pelé, and Diego Maradona were the three most often mentioned players. Participants frequently named football players who reached the midpoint of their career when the participants were adolescents (mode = 17). The results indicate that the reminiscence bump can also be identified outside the autobiographical memory domain.

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Emotional Valence, Discrete Emotions, and Memory

Levine¹,

Pizarro²

2006

Memory and Emotion

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Life scripts help to maintain autobiographical memories of highly positive, but not highly negative, events

Cited by 304 publications

References 46 publications

The cultural life script as cognitive schema: How the life script shapes memory for fictional life stories

The cultural life script as cognitive schema: How the life script shapes memory for fictional life stories

The Reminiscence Bump in the Temporal Distribution of the Best Football Players of All Time: Pelé, Cruijff or Maradona?

Emotional Valence, Discrete Emotions, and Memory

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