Citation

Svob C, Brown NR. Psychol. Sci. 2012; 23(11): 1404-1409.

Affiliation

University of Alberta.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797612445316

PMID

23012267

Abstract

In the study reported here, we investigated intergenerational transmission of life stories in two groups of young adults: a conflict group and a nonconflict group. Only participants in the conflict group had parents who lived through violent political upheaval. All participants recalled and dated 10 important events from one of their parents' lives. There were three main findings. First, both groups produced sets of events that displayed a reminiscence bump related to the parent's estimated age at the time of the event. Second, the majority of the events in both groups were transitions that were perceived to have exerted a significant psychological and material impact on a parent's life. Third, in the conflict group, 25% of recalled events were conflict related. This finding indicates that historical conflict knowledge is passed from one generation to the next and that it is understood to have had a personally relevant, life-altering effect. Moreover, the findings suggest that transitional impact and perceived importance help determine which events children will remember from a parent's life.

Language: en