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On the cultural constitution of collective memory

a
Qi Wang
a
Cornell University , Ithaca, NY, USA
Published online: 06 Mar 2008.

To cite this article: Qi Wang (2008) On the cultural constitution of collective memory, Memory, 16:3, 305-317, DOI:
10.1080/09658210701801467

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 MEMORY, 2008, 16 (3), 305317

On the cultural constitution of collective memory

Qi Wang
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

The study of collective memory needs to take into consideration the cultural context in which the
remembering takes place. In this article, I analyse how functional variations of collective memory across
cultures may influence the processes, practices, and outcomes of collective remembering. I then discuss
Downloaded by [Florida State University] at 18:25 08 October 2014

the transitory nature of culture in affecting collective memory across an individual’s lifespan as well as
across time and generations. I borrow recent findings from cross-cultural research on autobiographical
memory to illustrate the cultural effects, and propose a new approach to studying collective memory in
which the individual, the collective, and the culture are treated as a single unit of analysis.

Study the past if you would define the future.
* Confucius
Although no consensus exists either within or
across disciplines on the very definition of collec-
tive memory and its ownership, there is agree-
ment that such memory is shareable among
members of a social group or community, be it a
nation, an institution, a religious group, or a
family (Wilson, 2005). To understand the pro-
cesses, practices, and outcomes of social sharing
of memory, or collective remembering, one must
take into account the characteristics of the com-
munity to which a significant event occurred and
in which memory for the event was subsequently
formed, shared, transmitted, and transformed. In
other words, one must look into the social-
cultural-historical context where the remember-
ing takes place (Bakhurst, 2005). Just as one
cannot separate a dance from the dancer, so one
cannot separate a collective memory from
the collective and its individual members who
are the creators and carriers of the memory.
In this article I discuss theoretical issues in
relation to the study of collective memory in
cultural contexts. In light of recent work on
autobiographical memory, I analyse the functions
of collective memory and their cultural variations,
and how such variations may give rise to differing
contents, organisations, and practices of collective
memory across groups. I then discuss the transi-
tory influences of culture on collective memory
across an individual’s lifespan and across time and
generations. I adopt a broad view of collective
memory as a socially shareable memory system
that encompasses active, constructive processes of
both individuals and collectives in time and space,
and expect its meaning to further unfold through
the analysis. At the end of the article I address
further the conceptual as well as analytical issues,
where I propose a new approach to the study of
collective memory by treating the individual, the
collective, and the culture as a single unit of
analysis.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
To begin the analysis, a definition of culture needs
to be in place. Culture can be viewed as both a

Address correspondence to: Qi Wang, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, MVR Hall, Ithaca,
NY 14853-4401, USA. E-mail qw23@cornell.edu
I thank the reviewers and the editors of this special issue of Memory for providing helpful comments on earlier versions of this
article. Preparation of the article was supported by grants from the Cornell East Asia Program and the US Department of
Agriculture.

# 2008 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/memory DOI:10.1080/09658210701801467
 306 WANG
system (values, schemata, scripts, models, meta-
phors, and artefacts) and a process (rituals, daily
routines, and practices) of symbolic mediation. It
operates on social institutions (e.g., the family, the
nation) as well as on the actions, thoughts,
emotions, and moral values of individuals, thus
directing and regulating both intrapersonal and
interpersonal psychological functions (Bruner,
1990; Valsiner, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978; Wang &
Brockmeier, 2002). I believe that the following
characteristics of culture may be particularly
important for the analysis of collective memory.
First of all, culture is multifaceted rather than
unidimensional. It comprises and further takes
effect through different dimensions, levels, sys-
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tems, and processes (Holland & Quinn, 1987;
Valsiner, 2000). The formation and maintenance
of a collective memory can thus be substantiated
by multiple cultural forces such as shared mne-
monic traditions as well as practices of rituals,
media coverage, and individual storytelling.
Furthermore, culture may manifest in varied
ways across different domains of human experi-
ences (for example, national disasters, political
scandals, family relations; e.g., Kagitçibasi, 2007;
Wang & Li, 2003). Accordingly, the process and
outcome of a collective memory may vary as a
function of its cultural relevance in a particular
life domain, being constrained by the cultural
regularities of that domain.
Equally important, culture can be located in
the public (shared) time and space of the com-
munity, as well as internalised (often selectively)
into the private time and space of the individual
(D’Andrade, 1992). This co-existence of public
and private cultures may provide an important
mechanism for the formation and endurance of
collective memories in a community and its
members. On the other hand, it may also generate
tensions between cultural formations and indivi-
dual agency, where individuals actively negotiate,
resist, or even escape the limits of a state (or
community) imposed perception of the past
(Kansteiner, 2002).
In addition, cultural heterogeneity exists
within any community, among the individual as
well as subgroup members (e.g., gender groups;
Cross & Madson, 1997). Dynamic interactions
often take place between individuals and the
group they belong to. Consequently, just as
collective culture itself is not a simple aggregation
of individual private cultures, so collective mem-
ory is not a simple aggregation of individual
memories (Olick, 1999).
Finally, culture is not static but transitory
(Donald, 1991). It is situated at a particular
historical moment in time, reflecting and further
reaffirming the social transformation (including
technological inventions) experienced by a com-
munity and its members. Collective memory may
thus be affected by the characteristics of the
historical era, which can further result in genera-
tional and cohort differences.
WHY DO WE REMEMBER AND HOW
DOES CULTURE MATTER?
The purposes or functions of memory can directly
affect the organisation of and access to the
memory system (Baddeley, 1988; Robinson &
Swanson, 1990). Thus, the primary task of mem-
ory researchers, as Neisser (1982a, p. 12) sug-
gested, should be to understand ‘‘how people use
their own past experiences in meeting the present
and the future’’, and this task has to be carried
out in different settings ‘‘because changes in the
social and cultural environment can change the
uses of the past’’. The study of the functions of
autobiographical memory, that is, memory for
significant personal experiences, has shown that
individuals use memories to serve a variety of
purposes (Bluck, 2003; Pillemer, 1998) and,
furthermore, that memory functions and their
associated processes and outcomes can be shaped
by cultural mnemonic norms and activities (for a
review, see Wang & Ross, 2007). Importantly,
autobiographical memories may be viewed as
potential collective memories as, once shared,
such memories (e.g., family stories) may come
to constitute a significant part of a community’s
shared past and identity (e.g., Reese & Fivush,
2008 this issue).
Less is known about the functions of collective
memory, their manifestations in cultural context,
and, in turn, their consequences for memory
processes and outcomes. Some primary functions
may exist, as suggested in the collective memory
literature as well as research on autobiographical
memory. These functions may be intrinsically
related to the nature of collective memory and
thus be universal. In general, for a collective
memory to be formed and maintained, it has to be
functionally related to the achievement of the
group goals of a community, and the content and
structure of the memory have to exhibit mean-
ingful relationships to these goals (Halbwachs,
1980). However, given the different goal systems

and mnemonic behaviours across different com-
munities and societies, there may be cultural
variations in terms of how, whether, and to what
extent each of the functions is actually prized and
practised, which in turn may have important
implications for collective memory. Here I draw
on cross-cultural research on autobiographical
memory to shed light on these issues (Wang &
Ross, 2007).
The construction of a collective identity
Just as autobiographical memory serves a primary
function of defining the individual self (Baddeley,
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1988; Bluck, 2003), collective memory sustains a
community’s very identity and makes possible the
continuity of its social life and cultural cohesion
(Assmann, 1995; Bakhurst, 2005; Phillips, 2004).
Throughout history collective memory has been
central to the creation of community, from a small
unit such as a family to an entire nation. The
social practices of collective remembering allow
the members of a community to preserve a
conception of their past, whereby a sense of
who we were gives rise to a sureness about who
we are. Interestingly, on the other hand, creating
a shared identity entails an active, constructive
process that may contribute to memory distor-
tions. At the group level, this is often reflected in
instances such as nationalism and political manip-
ulation (Kammen, 1995). At the individual level,
people tend to remember more positive than
negative incidents and actions by their group,
and this positive bias in memory accessibility is
particularly exaggerated among those who are
highly identified with their group (Sahdra & Ross,
2007).
The extent to which people incorporate their
collective identity into their own self-conception,
and the extent to which people connect their
community’s past with their own autobiographi-
cal history, appear to vary across cultures. Cul-
tures hold varied premises regarding how
individual self is constituted; that is, whether it
is focused on one’s inner characteristics and
qualities or on one’s group memberships and
connections with important others (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991). Empirical studies have shown
that, when describing themselves, European and
European American adults tend to focus on their
unique personal attributes, dispositions, and qua-
lities, whereas Asians often refer to their social
roles, important relationships, and group mem-
CULTURE AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY 307
berships (Cousins, 1989; Rhee, Uleman, Lee, &
Roman, 1995; Trafimow, Triandis, & Goto, 1991;
Wang, 2001a). It is further plausible that in
cultures such as East Asia that emphasise shared
fate and group belonging, people may be more
inclined to connect their own life stories with the
stories (as well as the history) of the larger
collective, compared with people in cultures
such as the US where personal uniqueness takes
precedence in defining the individual self. Find-
ings from a study of autobiographical memory in
middle-aged adults provided support for this
proposal. In Wang and Conway (2004), middle-
aged adults from Chinese and European Amer-
ican cultural backgrounds each recalled 20 auto-
biographical events from their lives. Figure 1
illustrates the percentage of personal memories
with spontaneous references to historical events
as a function of culture. Approximately 17% of
the memories provided by Chinese participants
were situated in a historical context (e.g., ‘‘During
culture revolution, I was sent to the country-
side.’’), compared with less than 2% of European
American memories.
Furthermore, as cognitive theories suggest
(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), the way in
which the self is structured*e.g., which aspects of
self-related information are active, elaborated,
salient, and accessible*can influence how self-
related information is represented, evaluated, and
reconstructed over time. Research on autobio-
graphical memory has shown that European
Americans, who often focus on the personal
aspects of the self (e.g., attributes, dispositions),
tend to recall event information that is unique to
themselves and highlights their own roles, per-
spectives, opinions, and emotions (e.g., ‘‘the time
I was elected as the class president’’). In contrast,
Asians, who tend to focus on the relational
20
Percentage of Memories
16
12
8
4
0
Chinese European American
Figure 1. The percentage of memories with spontaneous
references to historical events as a function of culture.
 308 WANG
aspects of the self, often recall information about
social interactions and collective activities (e.g.,
‘‘going to church with family every Sunday’’)
(Mullen, 1994; Wang, 2001a; Wang & Conway,
2004). Interestingly, when Asian American indi-
viduals were led to think of themselves as
Americans, their personal memories were more
self-focused and less relational, compared with
when they were led to think of themselves as
Asians (Wang, in press).
Relating to collective memory, it is reasonable
to expect that when remembering the past, some
communities or groups, perhaps those who pos-
sess a greater tendency of ethnocentrism or
individualism*that is, who tend to centralise
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the person and peripheralise the social context
(Nisbett & Masuda, 2003; Oyserman, Coon, &
Kemmelmeier, 2002)*may be more inclined to
take their own perspectives, focus more on their
own roles in historical events, or simply remem-
ber more events of great relevance to their own
groups. Indeed, in a recent study (Wang et al.,
2007) where middle-aged adults were asked to
recall public news events taking place in their
lifetime, Americans recalled more events exclu-
sively about their own country or community
(93%) and fewer events about elsewhere (7%),
compared with British (72% vs 28%), German
(49% vs 51%), Turkish (56% vs 44%), and
Chinese (62% vs 38%) people. These differences
are in line with the findings that Americans are
more individualistic and egocentric in cognitive
processes than people of other countries (Nisbett
& Masuda, 2003; Oyserman et al., 2002; Wu &
Keysar, 2007). Consequently, Americans may be
more likely than other peoples to selectively
attend to information important to themselves
or their groups and further form detailed and
readily accessible memories of such information.
In addition to general cultural value orienta-
tions in information processing, specific cultural
themes that comprise a group’s identity schema
may also affect how individual members of the
group remember events in relation to the group’s
past. For example, when Korean and US college
students were asked to provide three events in
which they took the greatest pride in their
country’s past, US students focused on events
that exemplify their conception of an orderly,
free, and just society, whereas Korean students
took pride in events that illustrate a culture of
honour distinguished by the Hahn ethos
(Schwartz & Kim, 2002).
Different cultural self-views further determine
whether memories are utilised to augment one’s
self-esteem. A series of studies by Ross and
Wilson (2003) have shown that individuals in
Western cultures tend to use autobiographical
memories to maintain or enhance their positive
self-regard. They often evaluate their current
selves (what they are like now) more favourably
than they evaluate their past selves (what they
were like several years earlier), and they tend to
subjectively distance themselves from earlier
experiences with unfavourable implications for
their current self-views (e.g., performing poorly
in a course). The use of memory to facilitate
favourable self-appraisals contradicts a primary
purpose of remembering in Confucian cultures
where individuals are exhorted to use memory as
a means of attaining actual self-improvement,
rather than the more illusory self-enhancement.
Indeed, unlike their Western counterparts, Japa-
nese people showed no such memory biases
when recalling past experiences (Ross, Heine,
Wilson, & Sugimori, 2005). Similar cultural
differences may be observed in the usage of
collective memories to augment a community’s
identity and collective self-esteem, whereby
communities in Western cultures may be more
inclined to derogate their past or feel far away in
time from unflattering or shameful past events in
order to support a favourable present identity.
Alternatively, given the great importance of
group memberships in defining the individual
self in Eastern cultures, communities in these
cultures may exhibit similar or even greater
memory biases to glorify their present collective
identity.
Emotional bonding
The social function of memory in maintaining
relationships and strengthening emotional ties
among the parties involved is considered the
most primary purpose of autobiographical mem-
ory (Fivush & Nelson, 2004). It may apply to the
case of collective memory whereby, in creating a
sense of ‘‘common fate’’ among the members of a
community, collective memories may help to
strengthen the emotional bonding among the
members. In particular, conversing about mem-
ories of shared experiences, for example talking
about cultural revolution and individuals’ experi-
ences during this historical era, may facilitate
emotional exchanges among the community

members and further contribute to the develop-
ment of a sense of belonging and collective
‘‘intimacy’’.
Importantly, how interpersonal relationships
are organised and regulated and how social
boundaries are defined and sustained in a given
community can affect the usage of memory for
emotional bonding. In cultures that value indivi-
duality and personal choices, social relations, even
those among family members, are often voluntary
and require efforts from each member for rela-
tionship maintenance. The practices of memory
sharing can serve as an effective means of this
purpose by eliciting strong empathic and emo-
tional responses among the members. In contrast,
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in cultures such as those influenced by Confucian
traditions, relationships are largely determined by
predefined social roles and hierarchy, such as
those between the superior and the subordinate,
the father and the son, the husband and the wife,
the older brother and the younger brother, and so
on (Hsu, 1953). Interpersonal relations in this
cultural context are less voluntary and effortful,
and it is not important or even necessary to use
shared experiences to establish or maintain emo-
tional ties among the group members (Wang,
2004; Wang & Ross, 2007).
Consistent with this view, cross-cultural re-
search of family memory sharing has shown that
compared with Asian parents, European Amer-
ican parents are often more eager to engage their
children in conversations about the past and focus
more on the child’s feeling states during the
conversation. For example, Mullen and Yi
(1995) observed American and Korean mother
child conversations during an entire day. They
found that American mothers talked with their 3-
year-olds about past events three times as often as
Korean mothers did. In other studies, Wang and
Fivush (Wang, 2001b; Wang & Fivush, 2005)
asked American and Chinese mothers to discuss
with their children at home past events during
which the child experienced intense positive and
negative emotions. The memory conversations of
American motherchild pairs focused on the
child’s emotional experiences and the mother’s
corresponding sympathetic responses, which
would help to deepen the emotional intimacy
between the mother and child. In contrast, the
conversations of Chinese motherchild pairs fo-
cused on situating the child in a nexus of
relational hierarchy and installing proper beha-
vioural conduct in the child, rather than facilitat-
CULTURE AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY 309
ing emotional bonding (e.g., ‘‘you’re bigger than
her, you should give her the toy.’’).
Thus, the use of memory for emotional bond-
ing is in line with the cultural preconditions of the
workings of social relations. When the relations
among its individual members tend to be volun-
tary, the community may promote commemora-
tive ceremonies, including memory sharing, to
facilitate desired social cohesiveness, group soli-
darity, and emotional bonding. This may in turn
facilitate detailed and emotionally rich remem-
brance of past events in this community.
Therapeutic practice
Collective memory can serve as a therapeutic
practice for a community and its members, ‘‘a
healing device and a tool for redemption’’ (Stur-
ken, 1997, p. 16). It entails an active constructive
process during which the members of a commu-
nity participate in interpreting and further crystal-
lising shared past experiences (particularly
traumas) into eventual memory representations,
often in such forms as narratives, dramatisations,
art, ritual, and so on. This constructive and
transcendent nature of collective memory allows
the community and its members to make sense of
the past and further create a shared story by
symbolising the trauma, thus providing opportu-
nities for transforming the pain they experienced
and for further healing (Cole, 2004). Trauma-
coping mechanisms, such as rationalisation,
avoidance, positive reappraisal, religion, active
behaviour, and social support, may all take effect
during the formation of a collective memory. As
such, collective memory may become a result of
collective coping with shared traumas. Further-
more, reminiscing about traumatic experiences is
considered a healing mechanism essential to
recovery, and speaking one’s trauma publicly
can help to transform loss into collective memory
and perhaps social-political actions (Fivush, Bo-
hanek, Robertson, & Duke, 2004; Pennebaker,
Zech, & Rimé, 2001).
Autobiographical memory research has sug-
gested cultural differences in whether and how
personal traumatic experiences should be shared
with others as a means of coping. In Western
culture and psychology, sharing memories of
traumatic experiences, in verbal or written forms,
with others or with oneself, is often viewed as a
critical step towards healing and recovery (Pen-
nebaker et al., 2001; Pillemer, 1998). This positive
 310 WANG
emphasis on memory sharing, particularly on
relating stressful emotional experiences to others,
may not be appreciated to the same extent in
other cultures (Wang & Ross, 2007). Studies by
Rimé and colleagues have revealed cultural
variations in how, when, with whom, and to
what extent personal emotional experiences are
shared (Rimé, Corsini, & Herbette, 2002). While
20% of Koreans’ emotional experiences were
reported as having never been shared, for US
participants the comparable figure was only 5%.
French and US participants claimed to have
repetitively shared a single emotional episode
with others on a greater number of occasions
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(about five times) than did Koreans, Singapor-
eans, and Japanese (two or three times). In
addition, Westerners reported sharing an emo-
tional event shortly after it took place, usually
after a delay of 1 or 2 days, whereas Asians
typically reported a much longer delay, for
instance 4 to 5 days in the case of Singaporeans.
People in both Western and Asian cultures shared
emotional memories most frequently with best
friends and rarely with strangers, but French and
US participants were more inclined to share
memories with their family members (spouse,
parents, siblings, and grandparents) than were
Asians (Rimé et al., 2002).
In a similar vein, the mnemonic traditions and
norms of remembering and forgetting in a
culture can shape the ways that collective mem-
ories are used for therapeutic healing (Cole,
1998). When a horrific event (e.g., the Holo-
caust) takes place in a community that values the
importance of verbalisation and externalisation
of memory for the purpose of trauma-coping and
recovery, one may observe frequent commem-
orative ceremonies and memory retelling both
among individual members and through various
social channels, including popular narrative
forms such as films and novels. Such reminiscing
activities may help to maintain, reconstruct, and
assimilate the collective trauma and further
contribute to detailed and emotionally rich
remembrance of the event. In contrast, in a
community that undervalues the use of memory
sharing to cope with trauma, or in a community
where intentional forgetting and memory silen-
cing are encouraged, the traumatic event may
not provoke detailed or emotionally rich remem-
brance, perhaps only leaving a brief note in the
community’s chronology.
Directive function
Collective memory further serves a critically
important directive function, whereby a commu-
nity can call upon and make present its past in
order to achieve its potential and secure its
continuation. Individual members of a commu-
nity can reflect upon their past glories to ensure
their continuing future success. They can also
learn from their past mistakes by avoiding the
same dangers happening again, and use the failed
past to inform and provide incentives for future
actions. Examples are readily available for this
usage of collective memory. After painful reflec-
tions on the recent Chinese history of foreign
invasions, loss of land, and humiliation at the
negotiation table, the Chinese realised that ‘‘there
is no diplomacy for a weak country’’ and that a
nation has to develop a strong economy in order
to have an equal voice in the world politics.
Horrific tragic events such as the 9/11 terrorist
attacks can engender immediate protective re-
sponses among the community to avoid further
danger and preserve future safety (Gigerenzer,
2004; Pillemer, 2003). The directive function of
collective memory may be further reflected in the
instructional usage of the past, where senior
members of a community use the shared past to
socialise their young and thus to ensure social
cohesion and the moral and intellectual continu-
ity of the community. Alternatively, reminiscence
of the past by the older generation of a commu-
nity may serve as a means of nostalgia or placing
moral judgements on the present (van Dongen,
2005).
Cultures often assign different meanings to the
past. In some cultures such as China, the past is
given great moral and intellectual significance.
The Confucian concept da-xue ( ), or the real
learning, entails the exhaustion of all accumu-
lated knowledge in the history. It is viewed as the
only means of achieving moral and intellectual
integrity for an individual. Furthermore, the
practice of self-reflection (zi-xing, ) is highly
encouraged whereby, according to Confucian
teachings, a person should examine himself every
day on three things: ‘‘Have I done my best in
doing things for others? Have I been trustworthy
in my dealings with friends? And have I failed to
revisit what the Master had taught me?’’ In so
doing, individuals strive to achieve the supreme
virtues of benevolence, moral vitality, and a
sensitive concern for others. Although Western

religious traditions also encourage individuals to
reflect on their past sins and ask God for moral
guidance, the emphasis is on individuals’ relation-
ship with their God and the implications of this
relationship for their own well-being (Wang &
Ross, 2007).
Given the different cultural views of the past
and its usage, one may expect memories to play a
greater directive role in Chinese than in Western
cultures. Indeed, in the Wang and Conway (2004)
study, 48% of Chinese participants but only 9% of
European Americans spontaneously generated
mores, world views, and behavioural lessons
from their past experiences, such as ‘‘Since then,
I have realised that there are more nice people
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than bad ones in this world’’, and ‘‘I learned that
perfection takes practice’’. Even when sharing
memories with their young children, Chinese
parents frequently bring up the child’s past
transgressions, unwittingly or deliberately draw-
ing on the past episodes to convey moral mes-
sages to children such as obedience to authority,
proper conduct, and a sense of belonging (Miller,
Wiley, Fung, & Liang, 1997; Wang & Fivush,
2005). When applied to collective memory, a
culture’s view of the meaning of history and
shared experiences may influence the extent to
which people use collective memories to draw
lessons from the past and to educate their youth.
Thus in a culture where, from the micro level of
the individual and family to the macro level of the
society, repeating past mistakes is perceived as
the worst mistake one can commit, collective
memory may be heavily utilised for directive
purposes, which can further influence the struc-
ture and content of the memory.
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE
MEMORIES IN HISTORICAL TIME
Historical time, other than chronology, is crucial
for understanding representations and recon-
struction of the past in cultural context (Birth,
2006). The temporal organisation of memories
along culturally meaningful timelines provides
perhaps the very connection between autobiogra-
phical narratives and events of historical signifi-
cance, thus enabling both personal and collective
remembrances. During this process, historical
events become benchmarks and ‘‘the places
where we line up our own lives with the course
of history itself and say ‘I was there’’’ (Neisser,
1982b, p. 73). And in the meantime, individual
CULTURE AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY 311
experiences become merged with those of the
community and with the history one has lived, so
that ‘‘Our memory truly rests not on learned
history but on lived history’’ (Halbwachs, 1980, p.
57). Importantly, cultures may favour different
models of time (Bluedorn, 2002), and historical
events of a community may follow their unique
course of development. These may have certain
mnemonic consequences.
One productive approach to the study of
memory in historical time is to examine memory
retrieval across an individual’s lifespan. Research
on the phenomenon of reminiscence bump has
proved informative. Reminiscence bump refers to
a period of marked increase in memories of
events dated to when the rememberer is 10 to
30 years of age (Conway & Rubin, 1993). It is
proposed that the great accessibility of memories
from this period is related to the formation of a
stable self, and thus an individual identity, during
the transition from adolescence into adulthood
(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Holmes &
Conway, 1999). If this is the case, the reminis-
cence bump should be observed in all modern
societies, at least among middle-class populations
in such societies, where each life period (early
childhood, adolescence, midlife, etc.) is associated
with similar societal and cultural expectations
(e.g., going to school around age 6 or 7, getting
married in the 20s), and where young adulthood is
an important period for identity formation. In a
recent multi-nation study (Conway, Wang, Ha-
nyu, & Haque, 2005), middle-aged adults from
Japan, China, Bangladesh, England, and the
United States were each asked to recall 20
memories of specific events that took place in
any period of their lives. The reminiscence bump
took the same shape across all groups from the
period of 15 to 25 years, a finding consistent with
many previous observations (Conway & Rubin,
1993). However, there remains an interesting
empirical question about the reminiscence bump
in more traditional societies that hold views and
practices different from middle-class values con-
cerning individuals’ identity formation and entry
into adulthood.
The reminiscence bump is not limited to the
remembering of personal experiences. People are
more likely to report an event as ‘‘one or two
most important public events’’ in their lifetime if
it had occurred during their youth than other life
periods (Schuman & Scott, 1989). They are also
more likely to answer general knowledge ques-
tions correctly (e.g., about the Academy Awards)
 312 WANG
if the event happened when they were between 10
and 30 years than between 31 and 50 years
(Rubin, Rahhal, & Poon, 1998). And memories
of political events, which are thought to be
connected with individuals’ political identities,
are more accessible from youth period than
from other life periods (Finkenauer, Gisle, &
Luminet, 1997).
More important from the current perspective,
personal and public event memories may serve to
define different types of identities. While personal
or autobiographical memories serve as a critical
ingredient for an individual’s personal identity,
memories of public events, and collective mem-
ories more generally, constitute a generational
Downloaded by [Florida State University] at 18:25 08 October 2014
identity that emerges, in line with Mannheim’s
(1970) conception of ‘‘generation’’, through
‘‘shared cultural experiences of a type of event,
common ways of responding to the world, com-
mon existential problems and shared conceptual
knowledge’’ (Conway, 1997, p. 29). Furthermore,
the formation of the two types of identities may
not coincide chronologically. When comparing
the lifespan retrieval of public versus personal
event memories, Holmes and Conway (1999)
observed a peak recall of public memories from
when the participants were aged between 10 and
19 years, whereas there was a peak recall of
personal memories from when the participants
were aged between 20 and 29 years. It is possible
that generational identity starts to form during a
critical period in adolescence, when individuals
recognise that they are part of a social group with
which they share common goals, knowledge, and
memories of similar kinds of experiences. Conse-
quently, memories of public events that support
this identity are more likely to be retained from
this period.
We recently conducted a multi-nation study to
examine the lifespan retrieval of public events (cf.
Wang & Aydin, in press; Wang et al., 2007). US,
British, German, Turkish, and Chinese middle-
aged adults free recalled memories of public news
events that took place in their lifetime. Figure 2
illustrates the percentage of memories recalled as
a function of culture and the age of the partici-
pants at time of encoding. All groups but Chinese
exhibited a peak recall for public events in the
period when participants were between 10 and 19
years of age. This age distribution is consistent
with previous findings (Conway 1997; Holmes &
Conway 1999). There was also a bump from 40 to
49 years for all groups, possibly reflecting a
recency effect on recall. Different from all the
45 US
British
German
40 Turkish
Chinese
35 All
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 to 9 10 to 19 20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 > 60
Age at Encoding
Figure 2. Lifespan retrieval curves of public events in five
cultures.
Western groups, however, the Chinese group had
a peak recall from 30 to 39 years. It is not clear
whether and how this pattern of lifespan retrieval
in the Chinese group is associated with the timing
of generational identity formation. Perhaps the
late bump in the Chinese entails the establish-
ment of a ‘‘mature’’ self with sincere commitment
to social needs and moral rectitude, which,
according to Confucian ethics, does not appear
until age 30 when one can hold on firmly to what
one has learned (san-shi-er-li, ). It is
also possible that for Chinese adults of this
particular generation, who are currently between
40 and 60 years of age, important historical events
took place during their 30s, as opposed to their
teens, which further defined their generational
identity. These results point to the importance of
understanding the age characteristics of collective
memories as well as the historical time course of
the memory events in the definition of a genera-
tional identity.
COLLECTIVE REMEMBERING ACROSS
TIME AND GENERATIONS
The transitory nature of cultural influences on
collective memory may be reflected not only in
individuals’ recollections of public events across
their lifespan, but also in the historical transfor-
mation of collective memory across time and
generations. The form and content of collective
representations of a community’s past often
change over time, as a result of the shift of power
dynamics, the changing relationship between a
state and its people, and the available schematic
narrative templates, artefacts, landscapes, and
objects through which memory representations
are externally located (Jordan, 2005; Wertsch,

2002). For example, from analysing the historical
transformation in the structure and content of
memory narratives in oral (premodern) and
literary/print (modern) societies, Stepnisky
(2005) proposed the concept of ‘‘global memory’’
that emerges in the postmodern era of cultural
globalisation. Global memories arise in response
to the increasingly interconnected worlds enabled
by modern technology such as electronic media,
and further serve the purpose of dealing with
global risk and intercultural conflict.
Moreover, across generations or cohorts, a
community’s past is often assigned with different
meanings and interpretations that reflect the
respective cultural characteristics of each genera-
Downloaded by [Florida State University] at 18:25 08 October 2014
tion. Thus, those who were alive during the
Vietnam War were disproportionately more likely
than the younger generation to see that war as an
analogy to the current Iraq war (Schuman &
Corning, 2006). In contemporary South Africa, as
a result of the society’s radical break with the
past, the older generation’s recollections of the
colonial and apartheid eras are often not met with
sympathy or understanding from the younger
generation, but in effect even deepen the genera-
tional gap (van Dongen, 2005). On the other
hand, through constructive dialogues between
generations, the collective past of a community
may be given new meanings and significance, and
the shared memories of the past may be nego-
tiated and recomposed in the course of social
transmission (Tschuggnall & Welzer, 2002).
Culture continues to evolve in the historical
era in which we live, resulting in new variables in
collective memory. In particular, compared with
traditional ways of news broadcasting such as
newspaper and radio, the vivid presentations of
news events on television directly contribute to
the formation and persistence of collective mem-
ories for the news events (Matei & Ball-Rokeach,
2005). More recently, new means of information
transmission such as the Internet, e-mails, and
text messages have become increasingly impor-
tant ways through which individuals seek and
receive public event news. Such modern technol-
ogy not only provides new means of mnemonic
representations and communication, but also may
introduce revolutionary changes to the mnemonic
practices and socialisation of our time. As Kan-
steiner (2002, p. 195) asserted, ‘‘the media, their
structure, and the rituals of consumption they
underwrite might represent the most important
shared component of peoples’ historical con-
sciousness’’. Important from the present perspec-
CULTURE AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY 313
tive, differences in the processes, practices, and
outcomes of collective memory may be expected
among societies of different degrees of moder-
nisation and technological innovation, as well as
among individuals and groups in the same society
who have varied accesses to modern technology.
Pertaining to the latter, one form of within-
culture variation may be reflected in intergenera-
tional differences, as young people are generally
more receptive to new things and perhaps are
more willing to make use of new communication
technology than older populations.
Importantly, while reminiscence bump re-
search has shown that the use of memory to
define individual, collective, and generational
identities varies as a function of the historical
time and place of the memory events, little is
known about the age and generational effects on
other memory uses. I speculate that in the
modern era where face-to-face interactions are
gradually replaced by distance communications
such as e-mails and text messages, memory may
become increasingly important social glue for
interpersonal bonding, and the sharing and com-
memoration of traumatic experiences will con-
tinue to serve therapeutic functions in
communities that value such practices. On the
other hand, in fast-changing modern societies, the
past and the present sometimes become so
dissimilar that past experiences may no longer
be valuable or informative to current situations
and, consequently, the directive functions of
memory may become diminished.
INDIVIDUAL, COLLECTIVE, AND
CULTURE AS A SINGLE UNIT OF
ANALYSIS
The current analysis has shown that the cultural
characteristics of a community can impact on the
communication, inhibition of communication,
distortion, and selective remembering and forget-
ting in relation to the community’s past. In
particular, the functions of collective memory*
including, but not limited to, identity creation,
emotional bonding, therapeutic healing, and di-
rective instruction*that are in service of the
community’s goals may differ across cultures as
a result of the cultural preconditions of the self,
social relations, mnemonic norms, and the sig-
nificance of the past. This, coupled with different
mnemonic practices, may result in culture-specific
organisation and content of collective memory
 314 WANG
that are further characterised by important fea-
tures of the historical time. Findings from auto-
biographical memory research offer important
insight into these issues. Still, empirical data are
much needed to further reveal the impact of
cultural forces on collective memory.
How do we carry out this task? There is no
straightforward answer to this question, and it
may well depend on how collective memory is
conceptualised. Critically, as suggested in the
literature, neither the individualist understanding
of collective memory as the aggregation of
socially framed individual memories nor the
collectivist understanding of collective memory
as collective phenomena sui generis has proved
Downloaded by [Florida State University] at 18:25 08 October 2014
helpful in revealing the complex processes, prac-
tices, and outcomes of collective remembering,
because, ultimately, ‘‘There is no individual
memory without social experience nor is there
any collective memory without individuals parti-
cipating in communal life’’ (Olick, 1999, p. 346).
In line with this view, the current analysis further
reveals that collective memory is a socially share-
able memory system that encompasses construc-
tive processes at all levels from the individual to
the communal to the cultural. Accordingly, the
study of the formation, expression, and consump-
tion of collective memory has to cross analytical
levels and disciplinary boundaries (Phillips, 2004).
One way to approach the question is to treat
the group, the individual, and their cultural
context as a single unit of analysis when we
consider how individual experiences and public
events become interconnected and how a collec-
tive memory is formed. Within the unit, the
elements may interact in different ways pertain-
ing to the nature of the event subjected to
commemoration. Thus, against the cultural and
historical backdrop, the mnemonic activities may
initiate at the individual level, generating to the
group (bottom-up); or at the group level, expand-
ing to the individual (top-down); or simulta-
neously at both levels. Subsequently, the
rememberings at the two levels reinforce each
other, and are further afforded, facilitated, and
shaped by the political, social, and historical
factors in the cultural context. In addition, shared
sociocognitive characteristics (e.g., egocentrism)
among the individual members may give rise to
group-specific content and organisation of mem-
ory, which further accounts for or mediates
between-group and between-culture differences.
Figure 3 illustrates these mnemonic processes.
This approach helps to bridge the two principal
Individual
Group
Cultural context
Figure 3. Individual, collective, and culture as a single unit of
analysis.
themes in the study of collective memory, namely
group remembering and the social constitution of
individual memory (Bakhurst, 2005; Hirst &
Manier, 2008 this issue; Olick, 1999), and further
places culture in the centre.
Beginning with this unit of analysis, we can
start to explore how norms of remembering,
mnemonic traditions, and mnemonic socialisation
eventually give rise to a mnemonic community.
Particularly, measures can be taken to bridge
different levels of analyses*individual, group,
cultural*by examining the constructive processes
of collective memory within the context of inter-
personal exchanges, where individual recollec-
tions of shared experiences can be strongly
influenced by the group dynamics during memory
communication (for excellent examples, see Cuc,
Ozuru, Manier, & Hirst, 2006; Gabbert, Memon,
& Wright, 2006). Such group dynamics is often
constrained by the particular cultural context that
defines and regulates the nature of interpersonal
relations and the organisation of social orders. For
instance, in cultures that promote social hierarchy
among individuals, individual recollections of the
shared past may be more likely to conform to
memories of those who hold greater power and
resources in the society at large and within the
context of memory sharing, compared to cultures
that value equality and individuals’ authorship of
their own experiences (Wang, 2007). Further-
more, it is necessary to examine the constructive
processes of collective memory within the context
of family through intergenerational learning (Nel-
son, 2003; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993; Wang,
2004). By conversing with their children about the
shared past, parents model to children culturally
appropriate narrative structure and content of
memory, and further convey to children, explicitly
or implicitly, the purpose of remembering. Ulti-

mately, collective memory is a dynamic cultural
practice that sustains the cultural continuity of a
community and in the meantime adapts to the
cultural transformation of the community in a
historical era.
First published online 22 January 2008
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