Why are you telling me that? A conceptual model of the social function of autobiographical memory

Abstract

In an effort to stimulate and guide empirical work within a functional framework, this paper provides a conceptual model of the social functions of autobiographical memory (AM) across the lifespan. The model delineates the processes and variables involved when AMs are shared to serve social functions. Components of the model include: lifespan contextual influences, the qualitative characteristics of memory (emotionality and level of detail recalled), the speaker's characteristics (age, gender, and personality), the familiarity and similarity of the listener to the speaker, the level of responsiveness during the memory-sharing process, and the nature of the social relationship in which the memory sharing occurs (valence and length of the relationship). These components are shown to influence the type of social function served and/or, the extent to which social functions are served. Directions for future empirical work to substantiate the model and hypotheses derived from the model are provided.

The distribution and the functions of autobiographical memories: Why do older adults remember autobiographical memories from their youth?

“…Correspondingly, AMs that were less frequently shared were more evenly distributed around an earlier mean age. As mentioned before, individuals may especially share those AMs that they consider to be meaningful for their lives (see Alea and Bluck 2003). With respect to long-term AMs elicited with cue-words, this may include AMs stemming from a narrow age range located in young adulthood.…”

“…As mentioned earlier, however, AMs can be shared for various social purposes ranging from facilitating conversation to giving advice or eliciting empathy and intimacy (e.g. Alea and Bluck 2003). The results may differ when these narrower conceptualisations are used.…”

“…Alea et al 2014a;Harris et al 2014;Wolf and Zimprich 2014). According to Alea and Bluck (2003), (long-term) AMs that serve central social functions are probably those that an individual considers as personally meaningful.…”

“…Memories can be shared for various communicative purposes: to facilitate social bonding, to maintain intimacy in existing relationships (Cohen 1998;Webster 1993), to elicit empathy (Bluck et al 2013), to inform other people, or to teach lessons (Alea and Bluck 2003;Webster 1993). To cover the majority of possible social functions and to keep the conceptual overlap with the other functions at minimum, we refer to social AMs as memories that are frequently shared with others (see also Alea and Bluck 2003;Rasmussen and Berntsen 2009). While some studies found no age differences (e.g.…”

A conceptual and empirical framework for the social distribution of cognition: The case of memory

“…Researchers have also tended to focus primarily on individual cognition and on the negative outcomes of group remembering (i.e., does the group remember less than the individual?). But in realworld group remembering, accuracy is only one goal of recall, and operates alongside social goals, such as establishing relationships or making a good impression, developing and maintaining intimacy, teaching and informing others, and eliciting or providing empathy (Alea & Bluck, 2003). Thus, group memory may be qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different from individual memory.…”