Historical family stories serve individual and collective functions for the following generations
(2023) Brain and Cognition — Vol. 170, n° Supp, p. 106023 (2023)
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- Our past is made of more than our personal memories. While research has mostly focused on autobiographical thinking, few studies have examined how vicarious memories from close others — particularly family members — can impact us. We create a sense of self by recalling personal events but also by embedding it within family identity, built on stories from our family past. We share personal and family narratives to bond with others and to help us make decisions. Vicarious memories therefore serve similar functions to autobiographical memories (Pillemer et al., 2015). But when these family stories become part of collective narratives, they also impact individuals’ social identity, their inter- and intragroup relations, and their interpretation of the world. In other words, individual and collective memory serve parallel self, social and directive functions (Burnell et al., 2022). In our study, we met with families with an ancestor who either resisted during the Second World War or was judged for collaboration after the war. We interviewed participants from three different generations and asked them to evaluate whether it was important for them to know and transmit their family stories and why. Answers were coded as personal or collective functions. Within these two categories, functions were coded as self, social or directive. Results show that these war-related family stories served important functions for the self and for social relationships at the individual level, and more directive functions at the collective level (Fig. 1). Stories of the resistance also had a more collective impact than stories of the collaboration. There are two main take-home messages from our research. First, it shows the need for psychologists to look beyond the individual and examine memory as a continuum from individual to collective in which both forces interact constantly. Second, we show the importance to consider the content of memories
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Cordonnier, A., & Luminet, O. (2023). Historical family stories serve individual and collective functions for the following generations. Brain and Cognition, 170(Supp), 106023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2023.106023 (Original work published 2023)