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Adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect a trajectory ofself-development from family over school to friends

Adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect a trajectory ofself-development from family over school... The relationship between autobiographical memories and self is important in manytheories. Promising recent approaches from cross-cultural psychology use aconcept of “self-construal”, in which reference to otherscan be as important as indicators of autonomy. However, these studies typicallyask for earliest memories only, whereas we would expect the roles of others tochange over the course of development. Taking as a premise thatadolescents’ life unfolds in three concurrent settings –family, school, and friendship – we asked 66 adolescents (22Norwegians in Study 1, and 40 Slovaks in Study 2) for a meaningful memory fromeach of these settings. The memories they selected from the family setting wereoldest, school memories intermediate and friend memories most recent, suggestinga developmental trajectory in which the three settings have changed inimportance. Memories from the friendship setting were also most frequently ontheir mind. Furthermore, family memories referred most to other people, friendmemories marginally less and school memories least, suggesting differentcontributions of these settings to self-construal. We conclude thatcharacteristics of adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect shiftingsettings’ dominance during development and complementary roles offamily, school and friends for adolescents’ currentself-construal. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Nordic Psychology American Psychological Association

Adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect a trajectory ofself-development from family over school to friends

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References (39)

Publisher
American Psychological Association
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The authors & Nordic Psychology
ISSN
1901-2276
eISSN
1904-0016
DOI
10.1027/1901-2276/a000036
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The relationship between autobiographical memories and self is important in manytheories. Promising recent approaches from cross-cultural psychology use aconcept of “self-construal”, in which reference to otherscan be as important as indicators of autonomy. However, these studies typicallyask for earliest memories only, whereas we would expect the roles of others tochange over the course of development. Taking as a premise thatadolescents’ life unfolds in three concurrent settings –family, school, and friendship – we asked 66 adolescents (22Norwegians in Study 1, and 40 Slovaks in Study 2) for a meaningful memory fromeach of these settings. The memories they selected from the family setting wereoldest, school memories intermediate and friend memories most recent, suggestinga developmental trajectory in which the three settings have changed inimportance. Memories from the friendship setting were also most frequently ontheir mind. Furthermore, family memories referred most to other people, friendmemories marginally less and school memories least, suggesting differentcontributions of these settings to self-construal. We conclude thatcharacteristics of adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect shiftingsettings’ dominance during development and complementary roles offamily, school and friends for adolescents’ currentself-construal.

Journal

Nordic PsychologyAmerican Psychological Association

Published: Oct 1, 2011

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