Historical Consciousness: Recollections of Major Historical Events in the Personal Life Story

How do people incorporate collective major historical events into their personal life stories? This study investigates the concept of historical consciousness, which is the extent to which individuals integrate the recollection of major historical events into their narrative identity in personally meaningful ways. A sample of 134 midlife adults were asked to describe in detail two major historical events, social movements, or societal changes that impacted them and explain their personal significance. Individual differences in the degree to which the participants incorporated these collective events into their narrative identities were coded on a dimension running from “tuning history out” (low scores) to “witnessing history” (medium) to “living history” (high). Scores on the narrative measure of historical consciousness were positively associated with extraversion, identification with all humanity, indicators of psychosocial adjustment (i.e., generativity and psychological well-being), and civic and political engagement behaviors.