title: Cultural variation in the correlates of flashbulb memories: an investigation in five countries.
abstract: Flashbulb memory (FBM) refers to the vivid memory for the context of learning about a public news event. Past research has identified a number of factors that influence the formation of FBM, such as the importance of the event, the experience of intense emotions, and the amount of post-event rehearsal. Although such factors may be universal in predicting FBM formation across cultures, they may differentially impact FBM given different cultural belief systems and practices. In the present study we investigated the moderating effect of culture for various predictors of FBM in five countries: China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA. Results indicated that the effects of national importance and rehearsal of the reception context were consistent across cultures. In contrast, culture moderated the effects of personal importance, emotionality, surprise, and event rehearsal. In all cases the effects of these variables were significantly smaller in the Chinese sample.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. sarah.kulkofsky@ttu.edu
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kulkofsky
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Martin A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Conway
authors.forename: Yubo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Cagla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Aydin
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mueller-Johnson
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Williams
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D014421:Turkey; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States