When we feel good and bad about ourselves: self-esteem memories across cultures.
Young adults in the United States, Croatia, and China described personal episodes of times when they felt especially good or bad about themselves. These self-esteem memories were either recent (episodes that occurred during the previous 4 weeks) or remote (episodes that occurred between the ages of 10 and 15). Systematic content differences between memories of positive and negative self-worth were apparent primarily for remote rather than for recent memories. Across cultures, long-lasting positive memories frequently represented achievement themes, whereas negative memories frequently represented social themes. Links between achievement success and positive self-regard, and between social distress and negative self-regard, are explained using theories of self-esteem and autobiographical memory.
Ivcevic
Zorana
Z
Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. zivcevic@unh.edu
Pillemer
David B
DB
Wang
Qi
Q
Hou
Yubo
Y
Tang
Huizhen
H
Mohoric
Tamara
T
Taksic
Vladimir
V
D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D017523:Croatia / Q000208:ethnology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology