title: The role of culture and self-construal in autobiographical memories of US and Turkish college students.
abstract: This study examined memory variables both cross-culturally and across four cultural self-construal types. US (N=240) and Turkish (N=174) college students described their earliest childhood memory, and another significant childhood memory, and completed the Balanced Integration-Differentiation (BID) Scale (Imamoglu, 1998; 2003), which measured relatedness and individuation, and allowed for the classification of students into four different self-construal types (Related-Individuated, Separated-Individuated, Related-Patterning, Separated-Patterning). At the cultural level US students' earliest memories were dated approximately 6 months earlier, had greater volume, and were more positive. US students also reported memories as more important. Turkish students' memories had more detail, a higher proportion of propositions, self-, other- and we-related words, and higher other-self ratios, and they were clearer than those of US students. Turkish students also reported greater ease in describing their earliest memory in words. At the level of self-construal the primary differences were between students high in both relatedness and individuation and those low in both. The culture by BID interaction was significant in only 1 of the more than 24 analyses.
authors: a Department of Psychology , Middle East Technical University , Ankara , Turkey.
authors: Basak
authors: B
authors: Sahin
authors: Carolyn J
authors: CJ
authors: Mebert
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D009035:Mothers; D009949:Orientation; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D012951:Socialization; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014421:Turkey; D014481:United States; D014495:Universities; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult