Cultural life script as a dynamic semantic structure of autobiographical experience (re)organization

Abstract

The core function of autobiographical memory is to form a “database” for coherent self-consciousness over time (Wilson, Ross, 2003; Bluck et al., 2005). The way people construct their life stories follows cultural conventions on life scripts (Bohn, Berntsen, 2008; Habermas, 2007). Cultural life scripts are mental representations of the culturally expected events in a typical life and their age norms (Berntsen, Rubin, 2004; Nourkova et. al., 2005). The main resource of anchoring the most preferable content of self is autobiographical memory. To put it more precisely, people are expected to internalize specific cultural life script and then to employ it for individual narratives. Different cultures have specific sets of requirements for personality (Kagitcibasi, 1997, Hofstede, 2001; Schwartz, 2002; etc). There are cultures in which autonomy is more supported than relatedness and via verse. Parents teach their children to remember themselves in a certain way (for instance, as an autonomous agent or as a part of social structure). It is common that people from generally collectivistic societies would create life narrative in terms of relatedness. On the contrary, people from generally individualistic societies would put their life story in more autonomous terms. There are many findings that support this view (Conway et al., 2005; Jobson, O'Kearney, 2008; etc). But human life should not be homogeneous in respect to the proportion of autonomy and relatedness. People may be determined to shift their minds from one perspective to another while they change their social roles. The objective of the first study was to determine whether expressions of autonomy and relatedness in autobiographical narrative vary by age of memories...