To learn the reason, she compared American mothers talking to their 3-year-olds with Chinese mothers doing the same thing. "American parents formulated conversation in the form of storytelling, with the child the central character in the story. The stories were elaborate, interactive and focused on what the child did or thought," Wang says. Chinese mothers, on the other hand, questioned their children so that the interaction was more in the form of a test than a story.
The difference in style plays out in adulthood. American adults report more memories of atypical experiences with a focus on their own roles and emotions, Wang reports, while Chinese adults are more inclined to recall routine social events.
Jazzy Rewrites and Special Effects
No matter what our life story is, we tend to continually rewrite it. During periods of transition, memories on the back burner may acquire new importance, depending on what's going on.
"Let's say I'm thinking of going to medical school," says McAdams. "That may motivate me to think about my past in ways that answer the question, 'How did I get this interest in becoming a doctor?' I may prioritize certain events. I might remember a conversation that I had when I was 16 with a neighbor who was a physician, and think, 'That was a turning point.' In light of my goals, I'll reconstruct the past." Marriage and divorce, getting hired or fired, losing a parent or falling in love, may all require that we tweak our myth to allow for new characters and thickening plotlines. "We create stories to make it sensible," McAdams states.
As soon as recollections come out of storage and enter the interpersonal realm, they are ripe for modification: "If something momentous happens, we may feel pressured to make meaning of it by talking to people and gauging their reactions," says Thorne. The feedback shapes our future memories of what transpired.
We are highly suggestible; subjects in one study actually "remembered" visiting someplace they'd never been after seeing a photo of it. Suggestion may even induce false memories of abuse. The more we retell false memories, the more "real" they become.
The most enduring autobiographical memories are emotionally loaded, both positively and negatively. The more we retell these stories, the more important they will seem. Replaying breakup or accident scenes heightens their sentimental power, akin to repeatedly ripping the scab off a wound. Conversely, the less we talk about an unfortunate event, the easier it is to put it behind us.
Over time we elevate happy memories to prominence and demote unhappy ones to the back burner of the brain. Psychologists at the University of Washington, Seattle, demonstrated that people could intentionally forget selected memories, providing an explanation for why we may not remember unpleasant or sad episodes.
No one likes to think that their memories are profoundly skewed. Loved ones sometimes act as memory editors who keep us from veering too far off our narrative tracks. "Other people's need for predictability and stability forces us to be somewhat consistent in the way we tell memories," says Thorne.
But the effects of our distortions may be more important than their severity. "If being inaccurate allows you to have optimism in your life or to go forward even in situations where you might have given up," says Jefferson Singer, "a little inaccuracy is not so bad."
Often, as our lives draw to a close, we take stock of our nearly finished tale. "The perspective is that of the creator looking back on the fruits of his or her creation and gracefully accepting what has been made," McAdams says. "If the creator rejects the creation, the creator experiences despair. The identity is not worth accepting, and it is too late to create a new one. To find integrity in life, you must look back upon your personal myth and determine that, for all its shortcomings and limitations, it is good."
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