The influence of culture on the content of autobiographical memory

Study compared the contents of childhood autobiographical memories reported by two similar groups of American and Japanese undergraduate students divided equally according to gender. The first part of the survey consisted of an abbreviated form of the Twenty Statements Test (TST). The second part consisted of 12 questions equally divided between childhood events in the school and family contexts. The responses to the abbreviated TST were judged private, public, or collective. The references to individualism, collectivism, self-enhancement, and self-effacement within the contexts of home and family were recorded and analyzed, as were positive and negative affect references in each memory. The study found the American participants reported a significantly greater number of references to self-enhancement than did the Japanese participants; however, no further significant differences were found, except for a significant interaction between culture and gender for the TST responses judged to be private. Results are discussed in the context of previous research on collectivist and individualist cultures.