Culturally Motivated Remembering: The Moderating Role of Culture for the Relation of Episodic Memory to Well-Being

Abstract

Episodic memory for specific personal events is a fundamental human cognitive faculty. Yet it is variably valued across cultures and may thus have different implications for psychological well-being. In a series of studies, we investigated the consequences of cultural fit in detailed episodic recall for psychological well-being among healthy adults and children from European American and East Asian cultural backgrounds. Participants recalled recent and distant personal events (Studies 1, 2, and 3) or recent positive and negative events (Study 4). The findings showed that culture moderated the relation of episodic memory to various aspects of mental health and well-being. Whereas detailed recall was linked to decreased use of avoidant coping among European Americans, it was associated with elevated depressive symptoms, decreased adaptive skills, and increased negative affect among East Asians. The findings support the person-culture-fit framework and suggest that the functional significance of episodic memory depends on cultural contexts.

Keywords

episodic memory culture well-being mental health memory specificity

Remembering specific events from a particular time and place, namely, episodic memory, enables us to mentally travel back in time to reexperience our past and is regarded as “a true marvel of nature” (Tulving, 2002, p. 3). The lack of such memories, on the other hand, has detrimental effects on one’s sense of self (Sacks, 1998) and is associated with psychopathology (Hitchcock, Nixon, & Weber, 2014; Jobson, Moradi, Rahimi-Movaghar, Conway, & Dalgleish, 2014; Williams et al., 2007). Recent research with healthy Western adults has further shown that episodic memory contributes to a variety of positive outcomes: Detailed recall, or memory specificity, is associated with greater creative thinking, more active coping, and better psychological well-being (Jing, Madore, & Schacter, 2016; Madore, Addis, & Schacter, 2015; Schacter, 2012). Yet the functional significance of episodic memory needs to be understood in specific cultural contexts (Alea & Wang, 2015; Neisser, 1982; Wang, 2013). From a person-culture-fit framework, it is the congruence between cognitive skills and cultural norms, rather than the skills alone, that best predicts psychosocial outcomes (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002). We report a series of studies to show that culture moderated the relation of episodic memory to various aspects of well-being, including coping, depressive symptoms, adaptive skills, and affect.

Episodic memory varies across cultures in its importance for constituting the self (Ross & Wang, 2010; Wang, 2009, 2013). Specific, one-moment-in-time events (e.g., “winning a prestigious award”) with idiosyncratic details are distinct personal experiences that provide critical ingredients for an autonomous sense of self, which is highly valued and actively promoted in Western, especially European American, cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Individuals in these cultures may therefore be particularly motivated to remember specific episodes and their details that, in turn, consolidate their unique identity. Such memories are less prioritized in cultures such as East Asia, where a relational sense of self is largely derived from one’s social roles and relationships rather than idiosyncratic experiences (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Indeed, detailed remembering of one’s own experiences may signal an excessive focus on oneself and is thus incongruent with Asian cultural norms that downplay personal uniqueness (Ross & Wang, 2010; Wang, 2013).

In line with this analysis, cross-cultural studies have consistently shown that when asked to recall recent or distant past events, European and European American adults tend to retrieve more specific events and more specific details of the events than do their Asian and Asian American counterparts (Wang, 2001, 2006a; Wang & Conway, 2004; Wang, Hou, Tang, & Wiprovnick, 2011; Wang & Ross, 2005). Such cultural differences in episodic memory are also prevalent among clinical populations with memory deficits (Jobson et al., 2014; Jobson & Humphries, 2012) and emerge early in children as young as 3 years of age (Peterson, Wang, & Hou, 2009; Wang, 2004, 2006b, 2008; Wang, Capous, Koh, & Hou, 2014). Furthermore, even within a single culture, individuals with a more salient autonomous sense of self—those who view themselves primarily in terms of their unique attributes, qualities, and dispositions—exhibit greater accessibility to episodic memories than those with a more salient relational sense of self—those who view themselves more in terms of their roles and relationships (Jobson et al., 2014; Wang, 2001, 2006b; Wang, Leichtman, & White, 1998).

Episodic memory is thus variably motivated by different cultural self-construals and may further have different implications for well-being across cultures. The person-culture-fit framework suggests that psychological adjustment is best predicted by the goodness of fit between individual characteristics and cultural norms (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002). Research has shown that it is not individual characteristics but the congruence between the characteristics and cultural expectations that promotes adaptive psychosocial functioning and well-being (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, Kim, Eom, & Choi, 2014; Suh, 2002; Yoo, Miyamoto, Rigotti, & Ryff, 2017). The lack of congruence, on the other hand, predicts greater difficulties in psychological adjustment and lower life satisfaction (Chirkov, Lynch, & Niwa, 2005; Doan & Wang, 2018). Thus, although research with healthy Western populations has shown that detailed episodic memory is positively associated with various well-being outcomes (Jing et al., 2016; Madore et al., 2015; Schacter, 2012), this relation may depend on cultural contexts. Answering this question is critically important for the theoretical understanding of the functional significance of episodic memory and for improving everyday and clinical practices in societies of increasing ethnic-cultural diversity.

In the current research, we investigated the consequences of cultural fit in remembering personal experiences for a variety of well-being measures among healthy adults and children from European American and East Asian cultural backgrounds. Participants recalled recent and distant personal events (Studies 1, 2, 3) or recent positive and negative events (Study 4). Their memory descriptions were coded following a standardized scoring procedure in which specific (or internal) details directly relevant to the event (e.g., what, where, when)—often referred to as memory specificity—were distinguished from general (or external) details of semantic facts or generic information (Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2008; Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002; Wang et al., 2011). Given that detailed episodic memories are in alignment with the European American cultural emphasis on individuality and autonomy but incongruent with East Asian cultural norms that downplay personal uniqueness and self-focus (Ross & Wang, 2010; Wang, 2009, 2013), we expected that among European American adults and children, memory specificity or the amount of specific detail would be associated with positive well-being outcomes or at least not associated with negative outcomes. In contrast, among East Asian adults and children, memory specificity would be associated with negative well-being outcomes or at least not associated with positive outcomes.

Study 1: Episodic Memory and Coping

Among Western adults, remembering less specific detail has been linked to an avoidant coping style in regulating negative affect (Debeer, Raes, Williams, & Hermans, 2013; Hermans, Defranc, Raes, Williams, & Eelen, 2005). Avoidant coping is considered to be a maladaptive coping strategy characterized by the effort to escape from a stressor, which is typically ineffective and further leads to increased anxiety (Friedman & Silver, 2006). Hermans and colleagues (2005) argue that episodic memory serves to regulate affect such that reduced memory specificity helps to blunt acute negative affective reactions for individuals with avoidance and that individuals who remember more specific detail are less likely to use avoidant coping. From the person-culture-fit framework (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002), this negative association between specific detail and avoidant coping may be absent among East Asians for whom detailed remembering of one’s own experiences is generally discouraged and thus may not serve affect-regulating functions. This study thus tested the moderating role of culture in the relation of memory specificity to avoidant coping.

Method

Participants

The sample consisted of 209 undergraduate students (age M = 20.81 years, SD = 1.63) from two elite universities in the United States and China, including 99 from Cornell University (all European American; 58 females, 41 males) and 110 from Peking University (all ethnic Chinese; 61 females, 48 males, and 1 did not provide gender information). Participants received partial course credits for their participation and gave informed consent.

Procedure and measures

Participants met with a researcher in small groups of one to four and each received a questionnaire in their native language. A translation and back-translation procedure was used to ensure equivalent literal and sense meanings between the English and Chinese versions of the questionnaire.¹

Memory task

The questionnaire consisted of one section on “Remembering Past Events,” with an instruction adopted from previous studies (Addis et al., 2008; D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2006). Participants were asked to recall three personal events from the past that occurred, respectively, last week, last year, and in the past 10 to 15 years. They were instructed that each recalled event should be of a specific one-time event that took place at a particular time and place and did not last over a day. Specific examples were provided (e.g., visiting the Eiffel Tower on one particular day, as opposed to a 3-week trip to France). Participants were further asked to recall the events as if they were reexperiencing them and to describe each of the events in as much detail as they could within a 3-min time limit. The order of the three time periods was counterbalanced.

The data were coded following previous studies (Addis et al., 2008; Levine et al., 2002). Each event description was segmented into distinct informational details that were then categorized as either specific or general. Specific details were episodic information directly relevant to the central event, including happenings or the unfolding of the story, characters, place, time, perceptual experiences, emotions, and thoughts. General details were nonepisodic information such as semantic knowledge and facts. The current analysis focused on specific details that index memory specificity. An English-speaking and an English-Chinese bilingual research assistant coded the U.S. and Chinese data, respectively. Intercoder reliability was assessed for 20% of the data from each group by two other independent coders. All coders were unaware of the study hypotheses. The average intercoder reliability Pearson’s r across the three events was .88 for the U.S. data and .93 for the Chinese data, and the average intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC [2, 2]) was .93 for the U.S. data and .96 for the Chinese data.

Avoidant coping

Based on Hermans and colleagues’ (2005) findings on the relation between memory specificity and avoidant coping, a scale was constructed to measure behavioral, social, and experiential avoidance. It included eight items from the behavioral-social subscale (e.g., “I tend to make up excuses to get out of social activities”) of the Cognitive Behavioral Avoidance Scale (Ottenbreit & Dobson, 2004) and eight items from the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (Hayes et al., 2004; e.g., “If I could magically remove all the painful experiences I’ve had in my life, I would do so”). Participants rated each item on a 5-point scale from 1 (not at all true for me) to 5 (extremely true for me). A total score of avoidant coping was summed across the items. The scale showed adequate internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s α = .65 (α = .62 for Chinese and α = .69 for European Americans), consistent with prior studies (Hayes et al., 2004; Hermans et al., 2005).

Results and discussion

The number of specific details was averaged across memories from the three time periods to index memory specificity (European American: M = 15.14, SD = 3.69; Chinese: M = 12.16, SD = 3.90). One participant did not complete the avoidant coping scale and was excluded (European American: M = 41.07, SD = 7.04; Chinese: M = 42.84, SD = 7.04). To test the moderating role of culture in the relation between memory specificity and avoidant coping, a regression analysis was conducted with culture, memory specificity, and the Culture × Memory Specificity interaction as predictors and the avoidant coping score as the dependent variable. As expected, a marginally significant Culture × Memory Specificity interaction emerged, t = 1.96, p = .051, β = 0.25, ΔR² = .02 (see Fig. 1a). Follow-up correlational analyses within each group confirmed that whereas avoidant coping decreased with increasing memory specificity for European Americans, r(98) = –.25, p = .015, there was no significant relation between memory specificity and avoidant coping for Chinese, r(110) = .02, p = .84.

Fig. 1.

Scatterplots (with best fitting regression lines) showing the relationship between memory specificity and (a) avoidant coping (Study 1), (b) depressive symptoms (Study 2), (c) adaptive skills (Study 3), and (d) negative affect (Study 4) for each culture.

Thus, consistent with prior findings in Western samples (Debeer et al., 2013; Hermans et al., 2005), memory specificity was associated with decreased tendency of avoidant coping among European Americans. This result is in line with the theoretical proposal concerning the affect-regulating quality of episodic memory specificity in the Western cultural context (Hermans et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2007). However, memory specificity bore no significant relation with avoidant coping among Chinese participants, which suggests that recalling detailed personal memories, given it not being valued in Chinese culture, may not be relevant to affect regulation in this cultural context. In fact, the excessive focus on the idiosyncratic details of one’s own experiences is incongruent with Chinese cultural norms and, as a result, may be harmful for psychological well-being. Studies 2 and 3 tested this hypothesis in two samples of healthy school-aged children.

Study 2: Episodic Memory and Depressive Symptoms

Extensive research with clinical populations has generally established that the impaired retrieval of specific episodic memories represents a vulnerability marker for depression among both adults and children (for reviews, see Hitchcock et al., 2014; Williams et al., 2007). It is proposed that individuals with depression experience difficulty retrieving specific memories because of disrupted retrieval processes as a result of rumination, functional avoidance, and reduced executive control. Among healthy individuals of primarily Western samples, on the other hand, the connection between reduced episodic memory specificity and elevated depressive symptoms is not always clear, with the connection being present in some studies (e.g., Anderson, Goddard, & Powell, 2010; Sumner, Mineka, & McAdams, 2013) but absent in others (e.g., Gutenbrunner, Salmon, & Jose, 2018; Merckelbach, Muris, & Horselenberg, 1996). This leads to the suggestion that for healthy individuals, memory specificity may be only indirectly related to depressive symptoms by buffering against the impact of negative life events (Gutenbrunner et al., 2018; Hamlat et al., 2015). In contrast, from the person-culture-fit framework (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002), given that detailed personal memories do not fit well with the East Asian cultural emphasis on downplaying the role of the individual, memory specificity may indeed be positively associated with depressive symptoms among healthy East Asian individuals. This association may be negative or absent among healthy European Americans, as shown in the extant literature. This study thus tested the moderating role of culture in the relation of memory specificity to depressive symptoms in a healthy sample of school-aged children.

Method

Participants

Sixty-four children participated in the study, including 34 European American (13 girls; age range = 8.98–10.42, M = 9.68) and 30 first-generation Chinese immigrant children (15 girls; age range = 8.93–10.45, M = 9.42) from a university town and suburban areas in upstate New York. All children were from middle-class families. Children were taking part in a larger study of social-cognitive development in middle childhood. Parents gave permission for their children to participate and children gave informed assent.

Procedure and measures

Two female researchers visited the children at home. English-Chinese bilingual researchers visited Chinese immigrant children and conducted the interview in the language of the children’s choice. All except two Chinese immigrant children chose to speak English. All materials were written in both English and Chinese equivalent in literal and sense meanings. The entire home visit took approximately 1.5 hr and was video recorded. The tasks relevant to the present study are described below.

Memory task

This task was adapted from previous cross-cultural studies (Han et al., 1998; Wang, 2004). The interviewer invited children to play a game in which they would talk about specific past events. She explained to children that specific events meant things happening at a particular time and place and provided examples (e.g., “I went to the Science Museum last Saturday”). She then asked children to recall two events, one happening to them recently and one when they were little. Following each event question, the interviewer used standard prompts (e.g., “What else happened?”) until children indicated that they were done. The order of the two events was counterbalanced within each group. This task took approximately 10 min.²

The data were coded following the same standardized scoring procedure as in Study 1 (Addis et al., 2008; Levine et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2011). Each distinct informational detail in children’s event descriptions was categorized as either specific or general. Only specific details were analyzed here to index memory specificity. One bilingual research assistant coded the data. A second assistant independently coded 20% of the data for reliability check. Both coders were unaware of the study hypotheses. The average intercoder reliability across the two events was r = .93 and ICC (2, 2) = .96.

Depressive symptoms

Depressive symptoms were measured by Children’s Emotion Scale adopted from the Asian Children Depression Scale (Koh, Chang, Fung, & Kee, 2007). The scale included 20 items that capture commonly reported depressive symptoms among Asian and Western elementary school children. It showed satisfactory internal consistency in the current sample, with a Cronbach’s α = .82 (α = .75 for Chinese, α = .86 for European Americans). The interviewer read to children each statement (e.g., “I think bad things happened because of me”) and asked them to indicate how well it described them in the past 2 weeks on a 5-point scale (from 1 = not at all like me to 5 = most like me) that was presented both verbally and pictorially. A total depression score was summed across the items.

Results and discussion

The number of specific details was averaged across the two memories children recalled to index memory specificity (European American: M = 25.54, SD = 23.03; Chinese: M = 19.52, SD = 12.04). One child did not complete the depression scale and was excluded from subsequently analyses (European American: M = 26.58, SD = 7.16; Chinese: M = 27.42, SD = 4.98). To test the moderating role of culture in the relation between memory specificity and depressive symptoms, a regression analysis was conducted with culture, memory specificity, and Culture × Memory Specificity interaction as predictors and the depression score as the dependent variable. There was a marginal main effect of memory specificity, t = 1.89, p = .064, β = 0.10, ΔR² = .06. Although the Culture × Memory Specificity interaction did not reach significance, t = 0.91, p = .37, β = 0.05, ΔR² = .01, the regression slope appeared steeper for Chinese children than for European American children (see Fig. 1b). Subsequent correlational analyses within each group confirmed that whereas the depression score increased with increasing memory specificity at marginal significance for Chinese children, r(30) = .36, p = .053, the association was nonsignificant for European American children, r(33) = .17, p = .35.

Thus, consistent with some of the prior findings among healthy Western youths and adults (Gutenbrunner et al., 2018; Merckelbach et al., 1996), memory specificity was not associated with depressive symptoms in European American typically developing school-aged children. This is in line with the proposal that for healthy individuals, memory specificity may be indirectly associated with depressive symptoms, rather than being a direct marker for the risk for psychopathology (Gutenbrunner et al., 2018; Hamlat et al., 2015). In contrast, increased memory specificity was associated at marginal significance with elevated depressive symptoms among Chinese children, for whom detailed remembering of one’s own experiences is discouraged in their culture (Wang, 2013). Notably, given the nonsignificant interaction between culture and memory specificity, these findings should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, they are in line with the person-culture-fit framework that emphasizes the congruence, or the lack of it, between individual characteristics and cultural expectations in shaping psychosocial outcomes (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; De Leersnyder et al., 2014; Doan & Wang, 2018; Lerner, 2002). In the next study, we further examined the relation of memory specificity to positive well-being outcomes as a function of culture.

Study 3: Episodic Memory and Adaptive Skills

Episodic memory processes are believed to be involved in means-end problem solving and event reappraisal and thus serve a variety of adaptive functions for improved psychological well-being (Schacter, 2012; Tulving, 2002). Recent research with healthy Western adults has shown that attending to specific event details (e.g., people, setting, and actions) in a recall task subsequently resulted in decreased anxiety and negative affect, increased positive affect and future outlook, increased creativity, and increased use of active coping (Jing et al., 2016; Madore et al., 2015). Yet from the person-culture-fit framework (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002), the adaptive functions of episodic memory may be attenuated or even reversed among healthy East Asian individuals given the lack of fit between detailed personal memories and East Asian cultural expectations (Ross & Wang, 2010; Wang, 2013). This study thus tested the moderating role of culture in the relation of memory specificity to a composite measure of adaptive skills in a healthy sample of school-aged children.

Method

Participants

A total of 103 children participated, including 54 European American (35 girls; age range = 7.33–9.03, M = 8.23) and 49 first-generation Chinese immigrant children (23 girls; age range = 7.12–9.23, M = 8.12) from a university town and suburban areas in upstate New York. All children were from middle-class families. Children were taking part in a larger study of social-cognitive development in middle childhood. Parents gave permission for their children to participate and children gave informed assent.

Procedure and measures

The interview procedure and the memory task were identical as in Study 2. The memory coding also followed the same procedure, with the average intercoder reliability across the two events being r = .98 and ICC (2, 2) = .99. The adaptive skills measures are described below.

Adaptive skills

Children’s core characteristics of adaptive behaviors were measured by the Behavior Assessment System for Children (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004), in which mothers rated 44 items on the frequency (never, sometimes, often, almost always) of children’s prosocial and desirable behaviors (e.g., adaptability, social skills, leadership; Cronbach’s α = .91; α = .91 for Chinese and α = .90 for European Americans). Active coping was measured by Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (Ayers, Sandier, West, & Roosa, 1996), in which mothers responded to 24 statements about whether their children exhibited various behaviors in response to stressful situations that indicated active coping (e.g., direct problem solving, seeking understanding, and positive cognitive restructuring; Cronbach’s α = .87; α = .71 for Chinese and α = .88 for European Americans). Following convention in previous research (e.g., Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999), a composite adaptive skills variable was calculated by combining standardized scores on adaptive behaviors and active coping.³

Results and discussion

The number of specific details was averaged across the two memories children recalled to index memory specificity (European American: M = 21.87, SD = 14.77; Chinese: M = 18.21, SD = 11.04). The means for adaptive skills were M = 0.75, SD = 1.61 for European American children and M = −0.82, SD = 1.23 for Chinese children. One child did not recall memories, and mothers of two children did not complete the adaptive skills measures. These children were excluded from analyses. To test the moderating role of culture in the relation between memory specificity and adaptive skills, a regression analysis was conducted with culture, memory specificity, and the Culture × Memory Specificity interaction as predictors and the adaptive skills score as the dependent variable. There was a main effect of culture, t = −5.70, p < .0001, β = −0.83, ΔR² = .27, qualified by a Culture × Memory Specificity interaction, t = −2.08, p = .041, β = −0.024, ΔR² = .03 (see Fig. 1c). Correlational analyses within each group confirmed that whereas the adaptive skills score significantly decreased with increasing memory specificity for Chinese children, r(47) = –.37, p = .011, the relation was positive but nonsignificant for European American children, r(53) = .07, p = .62.

Thus, memory specificity was not significantly related to adaptive skills for European American children, although the relation was positive as that found among healthy Western adults (Jing et al., 2016; Madore et al., 2015). It is possible that European American children are still in the process of internalizing the values that their culture places on detailed personal remembering and their memories thus have not yet been associated with beneficial outcomes. In contrast, in line with their cultural expectations that downplay one’s own experiences, Chinese immigrant children who remembered fewer event-specific details exhibited greater adaptive skills than those who recalled more detailed personal memories. These findings support the person-culture-fit framework and suggest that the functional significance of episodic memory for improved psychological well-being needs to be evaluated in specific cultural contexts. In the next study, we further examined the recall of negative event details, relative to positive event details, in relation to subjective emotional experience as a function of culture.

Study 4: Episodic Memory and Affect

Research with Western samples suggests the value of making sense of stressful life events for psychological well-being, whereby individuals reappraise what happened and construct a coherent resolute story of the painful past (Hallford & Mellor, 2016; Pennebaker, Zech, & Rimé, 2001; Soliday, Garofalo, & Rogers, 2004). It is a common wisdom that individuals should actively process rather than repress negative experiences. Pertaining to memory specificity, whereas detailed memories for negative events may entail a constructive process of self-reflection that boosts positive affect and well-being, they may also imply rumination, which can be unhelpful and even detrimental (Marin & Rotondo, 2017; Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). Thus, the implication of negative memory specificity for psychological well-being is not entirely clear. On the other hand, East Asian cultural norms expect individuals not to dwell on personal details of the past and to be particularly reticent about negative experiences to maintain social harmony (Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008). From the person-culture-fit framework (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002), detailed memories for negative events, relative to those for positive events, may therefore be associated with experience of negative affect among Asians. This may not be the case for Westerners. This study thus tested the moderating role of culture in the relation of negative memory specificity to subjective emotional experience in a healthy sample of young adults.

Method

Participants

A total of 116 undergraduate students at Cornell University, including 51 Asian Americans of primarily East Asian origins (44 females; age M = 20.24 years, SD = 1.20) and 65 European Americans (45 females; age M = 20.24 years, SD = 1.01), participated in the study for partial course credit or $5. An additional 16 students participated but did not complete the affect measure; they were excluded from the final sample. Participants gave informed consent.

Procedure and measures

Participants were tested in small groups of one to five. They completed a survey that included questions about past events and emotional experience.⁴

Memory task

Participants were asked to recall one positive and one negative recent personal event, presented in a random order. Specifically, they were asked to recall a recent time “when you and someone had great fun together” and “when you and someone got into an argument.” Participants provided detailed descriptions for each event, which were later coded following the same standardized scoring procedure as in Studies 1, 2, and 3 (Addis et al., 2008; Levine et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2011). Each distinct informational detail in their event descriptions was categorized as either specific or general. Two coders, both unaware of the study’s hypotheses, independently coded 20% of the data for reliability estimate. The average intercoder reliability across the two events was r = .94 and ICC (2, 2) = .97. One coder then coded the rest of the data.

Affect

Participants completed the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE), developed by Diener et al. (2010), which assesses subjective feelings of well-being and ill-being. The scale includes six items to assess positive feelings (positive, good, pleasant, happy, joyful, and contented) and six items to assess negative feelings (negative, bad, unpleasant, sad, afraid, and angry). Participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (1 = very rarely or never, 5 = very often or always) how much they experienced each of the feelings during the past 4 weeks. Their responses were aggregated, respectively, to form a score for positive feelings (SPANE-P; Cronbach’s α = .88; α = .87 for Asians and α = .89 for European Americans) and a score for negative feelings (SPANE-N; Cronbach’s α = .80; α = .77 for Asians and α = .83 for European Americans).

Results and discussion

The specific details of positive (European American: M = 8.91, SD = 4.34; Asian: M = 9.49, SD = 4.70) and negative memories (European American: M = 7.82, SD = 3.42; Asian: M = 7.90, SD = 3.51) were correlated at .56 for both cultural groups, which suggests that there were individual differences in the general tendency to recall detailed memories. To examine the recall of negative relative to positive specific details in relation to affect states, a negative memory specificity score was calculated by subtracting specific details of the positive memory from those of the negative memory (European American: M = −1.09, SD = 3.72, range = −11 to 5; Asian: M = −1.59, SD = 3.95, range = −15 to 6). The SPANE-P scores were M = 22.52, SD = 4.25 for European Americans and M = 21.76, SD = 3.83 for Asians, and the SPANE-N scores were M = 15.06, SD = 4.26 for European Americans and M = 14.96, SD = 3.65 for Asians. To test the moderating role of culture on the relation between negative memory specificity and affect, a regression analysis was conducted with culture, negative memory specificity, and Culture × Negative Memory Specificity interaction as predictors and each of the affect scores as the dependent variable. There was no effect for the SPANE-P score. For the SPANE-N score, a marginally significant Culture × Negative Memory Specificity interaction emerged, t(112) = 1.93, p = .056, β = 0.19, R² = .03 (see Fig. 1d). An additional analysis of the SPANE-N score with the SPANE-P score included as a covariate in the regression model again yielded a Culture × Negative Memory Specificity interaction, t(111) = 2.26, p = .026, β = 0.17, R² = .03. Correlational analyses within each group confirmed that whereas the SPANE-N score significantly increased with increasing negative memory specificity for Asians, r(51) = .33, p = .019, the relation was nonsignificant for European Americans, r(65) = –.063, p = .62.⁵

Thus, whereas detailed recall of negative relative to positive events had no relation to positive affect in either cultural group, it had different implications for negative affect across cultures. Recalling negative relative to positive event details had no significant relation to the negative feeling states of European Americans. This suggests that, at least in this cultural context, detailed memories for negative events may entail different processes of self-reflection versus rumination, and that more fine-grained analysis is required to delineate the relation of negative memory specificity to psychological well-being (Hallford & Mellor, 2016; Marin & Rotondo, 2017; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008). In contrast, the more that Asians dwelled on the details of their negative life events relative to positive life events, the more negative affect they experienced, and that remained the case independent of positive affect. These findings support the person-culture-fit framework, where the congruence between individual cognitive characteristics and cultural norms shapes subjective emotional outcomes (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002).

General Discussion

The neurocognitive model of memory has generally regarded (albeit implicitly) episodic memory as the ultimate form of remembering and a cognitive faculty fundamental for psychological functioning among humans (Schacter, 2012; Tulving, 2002). Yet this model is built upon data from primarily WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) humans (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). It has largely ignored the ecological and cultural contexts that give rise to the purpose of remembering and thus shape the way the past is remembered in service of the present and the future (Alea & Wang, 2015; Wang, 2009, 2013). As Ulric Neisser proclaimed, “Changes in the social and cultural environment can change the uses of the past” (Neisser, 1982, p. 12). The present series of studies is the first to show that detailed remembering of one’s personal past is not necessarily the norm, nor is it always beneficial for psychological well-being. Instead, the relation of episodic memory to mental health and well-being may depend on the goodness-of-fit in specific cultural contexts.

In the Western, particularly European American, cultural context, episodic memory with idiosyncratic details for the purpose of building a unique “me” is congruent with the cultural expectations for individuality and autonomy and is thus generally associated with psychological well-being and not associated with negative outcomes (Jing et al., 2016; Madore et al., 2015; Schacter, 2012). Indeed, we found in the current studies that episodic memory was associated with the way of regulating negative affect among European American adults, and it was not associated with depressive symptoms among European American children or negative affect among European American adults. These findings are generally consistent with prior findings in Western samples (Debeer et al., 2013; Gutenbrunner et al., 2018; Hermans et al., 2005; Merckelbach et al., 1996). In contrast, detailed remembering of one’s own experiences, as much as is taken for granted as a cognitive as well as social advantage in Western cultures, may signal an excessive focus on the self and is thus incongruent with East Asian cultural norms that emphasize social relatedness (Ross & Wang, 2010; Wang, 2013). Accordingly, episodic memory bore no relation with affect regulation among Chinese adults, and detailed recall was associated with elevated depressive symptoms (at marginal significance) and decreased adaptive skills among Chinese immigrant children and with increased negative affect among Asian American adults. These findings support the person-culture-fit framework (Caldwell-Harris & Ayçiçegi, 2006; Chen, 2018; Lerner, 2002) and suggest that the functional significance of episodic memory for well-being is moderated by culture. They extend the current theoretical understanding of the role of personal memory in psychological functioning and have important implications for everyday and clinical practices in our increasingly diverse societies.

Notably, although the general patterns of results were consistent across four different samples of adults and children, some of the effects were limited in strength, which makes the findings only suggestive but not conclusive. The small effects might be partly a result of the similarities between the subsamples being middle class in all four studies and being in the same mainstream culture in Studies 2, 3, and 4. Further research with diverse cultural and subcultural groups is required to corroborate the findings. Another important limitation of the current studies is that all data sets were correlational. Thus, the causal direction between memory specificity and well-being measures could not be determined. Also, the studies did not directly test specific mechanisms underlying the negative (or the lack of positive) relations between memory specificity and well-being for East Asians and the positive (or the lack of negative) relations between memory specificity and well-being for European Americans. Although the studies yielded critical findings that suggest the moderating role of culture in the relation of detailed personal memories to psychological functioning, future research utilizing experimental and longitudinal methods is called for to identify important mediators for the different cultural patterns.

Furthermore, the current studies focused on episodic memory, in which participants were explicitly asked to recall specific, one-time episodes. Consequently, the provision of general details was generally infrequent, consistent with previous studies of episodic memory (Addis et al., 2008; Levine et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2011). Yet general details such as personal knowledge and semantic facts may serve important functions in their own rights (D’Argembeau & Mathy, 2011). In particular, some general details (e.g., “a family gathering every weekend”) imply social conventions, rules, and regularities paramount for social harmony and group solidarity. They may be especially important to people with a salient relational sense of self such as East Asians (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Wang, 2013). Future studies should thus examine individual and cultural differences in remembering general events and how that is related to psychological well-being.

Future research should also test the interaction between different dimensions of episodic memory in relation to mental health outcomes. The current studies focused on memory specificity that was differentially associated with well-being across cultures. Research that examines other memory dimensions such as coherence and content focus has identified interesting cultural similarities and differences in relation to psychological well-being. For example, Reese and colleges tested the link between memory narrative and well-being in New Zealand Ma¯ori, European, and Chinese adolescents (Reese et al., 2017). Regardless of culture, older adolescents who drew more causal connections between past events and their present self in their memory narratives (i.e., causal coherence) reported better well-being, whereas younger adolescents with higher causal coherence reported poorer well-being. On the other hand, memories that focused on personal development topics (e.g., “becoming a vegetarian”) were positively linked to well-being for European adolescents, but not for Ma¯ori or Chinese adolescents. Together, the extant findings suggest complex relations between memory and well-being and call for more research across cultures.

Deficits in retrieving specific episodic memories have been found to be associated with psychopathology across cultures (Jobson et al., 2014; Jobson & Humphries, 2012). The basic capacity of remembering episodic events is thus necessary for psychological functioning and probably provides an evolutionary advantage (Sacks, 1998; Schacter, 2012; Tulving, 2002). Yet, among healthy individuals, enhanced episodic memory does not automatically imply psychological adjustments, nor is the lack of detailed recall a direct indication of cognitive or psychological deficiency. Episodic memory may be best construed as a culturally motivated system that unfolds in response to the specific ecological environment and social context in which individuals reside. As such, it serves culture-specific functions in culture-specific forms that enable individuals to navigate in their psychosocial niche and assume the membership of their society.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Cornell Culture & Social Cognition Lab for their assistance.

Action Editor

Scott O. Lilienfeld served as action editor for this article.

Author Contributions

Q. Wang developed the research concept and research designs. All other authors provided feedback on the procedure and contributed to testing and data collection. All authors later contributed to data coding and computation. Q. Wang performed the data analysis and drafted the manuscript. All other authors provided revisions. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.

Funding

This research was supported by Grant BCS-0721171 from the National Science Foundation and Hatch Grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (to Q. Wang) and by Grant 31528014 from the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (to Q. Wang and Y. Hou).

Notes

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