title: The 9/11 attacks inside and outside the US: testing four models of flashbulb memory formation across groups and the specific effects of social identity.
abstract: Flashbulb memories (FBMs) are consistent recollections of specific details of the reception context of events. Four theoretical models accounting for FBM formation (Brown & Kulik, 1977; Conway et al., 1994; Er, 2003; Finkenauer et al., 1998) were tested on average 21 and 524 days after the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 in two groups of participants (US, N=112; non-US, N=727). Structural equation modelling revealed that (1) a revision of Finkenauer et al.'s (1998) model provided the best fit indices in both the US and non-US groups, (2) several relations among latent variables that were predicted by the three other models (Brown & Kulik, 1977; Conway et al., 1994; Er, 2003) were not significant, (3) with respect to Finkenauer et al's model, the "direct path" (from novelty/surprise to FBMs) was found to be significant only for the US group, while the "indirect path" (from emotional states, rehearsal and event-memory to FBMs) was only significant for the non-US group. It is suggested that the specific activation of social identity in the US group can explain these differences.
authors.affiliation: Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS-FRS), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Olivier.Luminet@uclouvain.be
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Luminet
authors.forename: Antonietta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Curci
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D047851:September 11 Terrorist Attacks / Q000523:psychology*; D012933:Social Identification; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires