Autobiographical Memory: What Has Happened in My Life • 207age of 54 created “I am” statements, such as “I am a mother” or
“I am a psychologist,” that they felt defi ned them as a person. They
were then asked when each statement had become a signifi cant part
of their identity. The average age participants assigned to the origin
of these statements was 25 years, which is within the span of the
reminiscence bump. When participants then listed events that were
connected with each statement (such as “I gave birth to my fi rst child”
or “I started graduate school in psychology”), most occurred during
the time span associated with the reminiscence bump. Development
of the self-image therefore brings with it numerous memorable events,
most of which happen during adolescence or young adulthood.
Another explanation for the reminiscence bump, called the cognitive
hypothesis, proposes that periods of rapid change that are followed by
stability cause stronger encoding of memories. Adolescence and young
adulthood fi t this description because the rapid changes that occur
during these periods are followed by the relative stability of adult life.
One way this hypothesis has been tested is by fi nding people who have
experienced rapid changes in their lives that occurred at a time later
than adolescence or young adulthood. The cognitive hypothesis would
predict that the reminiscence bump should occur later for these people.
To test this idea, Robert Schrauf and David Rubin (1998) determined
the recollections of people who had emigrated to the United States
either in their 20s or in their mid-30s. ● Figure 8.4, which shows
the memory curves for two groups of immigrants, indicates that the
reminiscence bump occurs at the normal age for people who emigrated
early, but is shifted to 15 years later for those who emigrated later, just
as the cognitive hypothesis would predict.
Finally, another explanation is the cultural life script hypothesis.
This explanation distinguishes between a person’s life story, which is
all of the events that have occurred in a person’s life, and a cultural life
script, which are culturally expected events that occur at a particular time
in the left span. For example, when Dorthe Berntsen and David Rubin
(2004) asked people to list when important events in a typical person’s life
usually occur, some of the more common responses were falling in love
(16 years), college (22 years), marriage (27 years), and having children
(28 years). Interestingly, a large number of the most commonly mentioned
events occur during the period associated with the reminiscence bump.
This doesn’t mean that events in a specifi c person’s life always occur at
those times, but according to the cultural life script hypothesis, events in
a person’s life story become easier to recall when they fi t the cultural life
script for that person’s culture.
The reminiscence bump is a good example of a phenomenon that
has generated a number of explanations, many of them plausible and
supported by evidence. It isn’t surprising that the crucial factors pro-
posed by each explanation—formation of self-identity, rapid changes
followed by stability, and culturally expected events—all occur during
the reminiscence bump, because that is what they are trying to explain.
It is likely that each of the explanations we have described makes some
contribution to creating the reminiscence bump. (See Table 8.1.)051015202530Percent of memories0102030405060
Age at time of eventReminiscence bumpA 55-year-old’s memory for events●FIGURE 8.3 Percentage of memories from
diff erent ages, recalled by a 55-year-old, showing the
reminiscence bump. (Source: R. W. Schrauf & D. C. Rubin,
“Bilingual Autobiographical Memory in Older Adult Immigrants:
A Test of Cognitive Explanations of the Reminiscence Bump and
the Linguistic Encoding of Memories,” Journal of Memory and
Language, 39, 437–445, Fig. 1. Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Ltd.
Republished with permission.)
05101520253530Number of memories0102030405060
Age at time of eventEmigrated at
age 20–24At age 34–35Shift in the reminiscence bump
due to late emigration●FIGURE 8.4 The reminiscence bump for people
who emigrated at age 34 to 35 is shifted toward
older ages, compared to the bump for people who
emigrated between the ages of 20 to 24. (Source:
R. W. Schrauf & D. C. Rubin, “Bilingual Autobiographical Memory
in Older Adult Immigrants: A Test of Cognitive Explanations of the
Reminiscence Bump and the Linguistic Encoding of Memories,”
Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 437–445, Fig. 1. Copyright ©
1998 Elsevier Ltd. Republished with permission.)TABLE 8.1 Explanations for the Reminiscence BumpExplanation Basic CharacteristicSelf-image Period of assuming person’s self-image.
Cognitive Encoding is better during periods of rapid change.
Cultural life script Culturally shared expectations structure recall.Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.