Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-20T18:48:59.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Individuals’ Self-Defining Memories As Reflecting Their Strength and Weaknesses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2017

Limor Goldner  and
Miri Scharf
Limor Goldner*
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Creative Arts Therapies, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel
Miri Scharf
Affiliation:
Department of Counseling and Human Development, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel
*
address for correspondence: Limor Goldner, PhD, Graduate School of Creative Art Therapies, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Chushi 199 Ave, Mount Carmel, Haifa 3498839, Israel. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The associations between attachment orientations, temperament, resilience, and various dimensions of self-defining memories were examined in 83 female Israeli adolescents and young adults. Resiliency and positive temperament were associated with positive qualities of memories, whereas negative emotionality and reactivity were associated with poor recollection quality. Lower levels of fearful attachment orientation were associated with interpersonal memories and mixed emotions in memories, and a profound-distrust attachment orientation was associated with life-threatening memories. The study highlights the contribution of these qualities to recollections and underscores the contribution to theory and practical implications.

Keywords

autobiographical memoriesself-defining memoriesattachment securitytemperamentresiliency
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , December 2017 , pp. 153 - 167
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahnert, L., Gunnar, M.R., Lamb, M.E., & Barthel, M. (2004). Transition to child care: Associations with infant–mother attachment, infant negative emotion, and cortisol elevations. Child Development, 75, 639–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bartholomew, K., & Horowitz, L.M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 226–244. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.226 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blagov, P.S., & Singer, J.A. (2004). Four dimensions of self-defining memories specifity, meaning, content, and affect and their relationships to self-restrained, distress, and repressive defensiveness. Journal of Personality, 72, 481–511. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00270.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bretherton, I., & Munholland, K.A. (2008). Internal working models in attachment relationships: Elaborating a central construct in attachment theory. In Cassidy, J. & Shaver, P.R. (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2nd ed, pp. 102–127). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Cassidy, J., & Berlin, L.J. (1994). The insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment: Theory and research. Child Development, 65, 971–991. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.4.2.11 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cahill, L., & McGaugh, J.L. (1998). Mechanisms of emotional arousal and lasting declarative memory. Trends in Neurosciences, 21, 294–299.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hokoben, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Conway, M.A., Singer, J.A., & Tagini, A. (2004). The self and autobiographical memory: Correspondence and coherence. Social Cognition, 22, 491–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cui, L., Teng, X., Li, X., & Oei, T.S. (2010). The factor structure and psychometric properties of the resiliency scale in Chinese undergraduates. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 26, 162–171. doi:10.1027/1015-5759/a000023 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, M.A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C.W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107, 261–288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diamond, L.M., & Aspinwall, L.G. (2003). Emotion regulation across the life span: An integrative perspective emphasizing self-regulation, positive affect, and dyadic processes. Motivation and Emotion, 27, 125–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, D.E., & Rothbart, M.K. (2007). Developing a model for adult temperament. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 868–888. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2006.11.002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeney, B.C., & Cassidy, J. (2003). Reconstructive memory related to adolescent-parent conflict interactions: The influence of attachment-related representations on immediate perceptions and changes in perceptions over time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 945–955.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fivush, R., Brotman, M.A., Buckner, J.P., & Goodman, S.H. (2000). Gender differences in parent–child emotion narratives. Sex Roles, 42, 233–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillath, O., Bunge, S.A., Shaver, P.R., Wendelken, C., & Mikulincer, M. (2005). Attachment-style differences in the ability to suppress negative thoughts: Exploring the neural correlates. NeuroImage, 28, 835–847. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage. 2005.06.048 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Griffin, D.W., & Bartholomew, K. (1994). Models of the self and other: Fundamental dimensions underlying measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 430–445. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.430 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunnar, M.R. (1998). Quality of early care and buffering of neuroendocrine stress reactions: Potential effects on the developing human brain. Preventive Medicine, 27, 208–211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haggerty, G.D., Siefert, C.J., & Weinberger, J. (2010). Examining the relationship between current attachment status and freely recalled autobiographical memories of childhood. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 27, 27–41. doi:10.1037/a0018638 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofer, M.A. (2006). Psychobiological roots of early attachment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 84–88. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2006.00412.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, B.M., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2006). The relationship questionnaire — Clinical version (RQ-CV): Introducing a profoundly-distrustful attachment style. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27, 310–325. doi:10.1002/imhj.20094 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liu, D., Diorio, J., Tannenbaum, B., Caldji, C., Francis, D., Freedman, A., . . . Meaney, M.J. (1997). Maternal care, hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress. Science, 277, 1659–1662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McAdams, D.P., Anyidoho, N.A., Brown, C., Huang, Y.T., Kaplan, B., & Machado, M.A. (2004). Traits and stories: Links between dispositional and narrative features of personality. Journal of Personality, 72, 761–784. doi:10.1111/ j.0022-3506.2004.00279.x CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McAdams, D.P., Bauer, J.J., Sakaeda, A.R., Anyidoho, N.A., Machado, M.A., Magrino-Failla, K., . . . Pals, J.L. (2006). Continuity and change in the life story: A longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood. Journal of Personality, 74, 1371–1400. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00412.x CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdams, D.P., & McLean, K.C. (2013). Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 233–238. doi:10.1177/0963721413475622 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccallum, F., & Bryant, R. A. (2008). Self-defining memories in complicated grief. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 46, 1311–1315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLean, K.C., & Breen, A.V. (2009). Processes and content of narrative identity development in adolescence: Gender and well-being. Developmental Psychology, 45, 702–710. doi:10.1037/a0015207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLean, K.C., & Fournier, M.A. (2008). The content and processes of autobiographical reasoning in narrative identity. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 527–545. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.08.003 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLean, K.C., & Pratt, M.W. (2006). Life's little (and big) lessons: identity statuses and meaning-making in the turning point narratives of emerging adults. Developmental Psychology, 42, 714–722.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Main, M., & Hesse, E. (1990). Parents' unresolved traumatic experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status: Is frightened and/or frightening parental behavior the linking mechanism? In Greenberg, M.T. & Cicchetti, D., (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 161–182). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Masten, A.S., & Obradović, J. (2006). Competence and resilience in development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094, 13–27. doi:10.1196/annals.1376.003 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mikulincer, M., & Orbach, I. (1995). Attachment styles and repressive defensiveness: The accessibility and architecture of affective memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 917–925. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.5.917 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P.R. (2007). Attachment theory and research: Core concepts, basic principles, conceptual bridges. In Kruglanski, A.W. & Higgins, E.T. (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 650–677). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Philippe, F.L., Lecours, S., & Beaulieu-Pelletier, G. (2009). Resilience and positive emotions: Examining the role of emotional memories. Journal of Personality, 77, 139–176. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00541.x CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prince-Embury, S. (2007). Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents: Profiles of personal strengths. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessments.Google Scholar
Prince-Embury, S., & Courville, T. (2008). Comparison of one-, two-, and three-factor models of personal resiliency using the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 23, 11–25. doi:10.1177/0829573508316592 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roelofs, J., Meesters, C., ter Huurne, M., Bamelis, L., & Muris, P. (2006). On the links between attachment style, parental rearing behaviors, and internalizing and externalizing problems in non-clinical children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 15, 319–332. doi:10.1007/s10826-006-9025-1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rönnlund, M., & Karlsson, E. (2006). The relation between dimensions of attachment and internalizing or externalizing problems during adolescence. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 167, 47–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roozendaal, B., McEwen, B.S., & Chattarji, S. (2009). Stress, memory and the amygdala. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 423–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenblum, L.A., Coplan, J.D., Friedman, S., Bassoff, T., Gorman, J.M., & Andrews, M.W. (1994). Adverse early experiences affect noradrenergic and serotonergic functioning in adult primates. Biological Psychiatry, 35, 221–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scharf, M. (2001). A ‘natural experiment’ in childrearing ecologies and adolescents’ attachment and separation representations. Child Development, 72, 236–251. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00276 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schore, A.N. (2001). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 7–66.3.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, D.J. (1999). The developing mind. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Siegel, D.J. (2001). Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: Attachment relationships, ‘mindsight,’ and neural integration. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 67–94.3.0.CO;2-G>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J.A., & Moffitt, K.H. (1991). An experimental investigation of specificity and generality in memory narratives. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 11, 233–257. doi:10.2190/72A3-8UPY-GDB9-GX9K CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J.A., & Salovey, P. (1993). The remembered self: Emotion and memory in personality. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Sutin, A.R., & Gillath, O. (2009). Autobiographical memory phenomenology and content mediate attachment style and psychological distress. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56, 351–364. doi:10.1037/a0014917 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thorne, A., & McLean, K.C. (2002). Gendered reminiscence practices and self-definition in late adolescence. Sex Roles, 46, 267–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, J.M.G., & Dritschel, B.H. (1988). Emotional disturbance and the specificity of autobiographical memory. Cognition and Emotion, 2, 221–234. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.122 CrossRefGoogle Scholar