The Cultural Context of Talk About the Past.pdf

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Cog nit ive Dev elop men t, IO, 407-4 19 199.5)

The Cultural Context of Talk About the Past:Implications for the Development of

Autobiographical Memory

Mary K MullenWilliams College

Soonhyung YiSeoul National University

Recent research shows that adults engage children in a process of co-constructingmemories by guiding them in the production of verbal accounts of their experiences.

Such talk about past events may influence the development of autobiographical memory

by teaching children that memories of personal experiences are valued, and further,

which aspects of experience are considered memorable. It has been suggested that

cultures may differ in the amount and content of these interactions. Sixteen mother and

X-year-old dyads 8 Korean and 8 Caucasian) were tape-recorded during naturally

occurring conversations. The Caucasian dyads engaged in talk about past events nearlythree times as often as the Korean dyads. This difference, as well as content differences

in the talk, are discussed in light of socialization goals. Combined with previous research

showing that Caucasian adults report earlier childhood memories than Asians, these

findings support the theory that early linguistic experience may be related to the

development of autobiographical memory.

Young children talk with adults about their experiences, and this type ofdiscussion may play a role in the development of autobiographical memory.

Some of the earliest investigators of autobiographical memory suggested

Mary K. Mullen conducted this research while at the Department of Psychology, HarvardUniversity.

This collaboration would not have been possible without the assistance of Bong-Yun Suhand Sang-Min Whang. We wish to express our appreciation to them. We thank Yun-Joo Chyungand Ji-Hee Kim for collection and transcription of the Korean data, Jungsook Han for hercareful translation of the Korean transcripts into English, and Kyu Kim for reliability coding.We would also like to thank Sheldon White for his advice throughout the process of conductingthis research and for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Finally, we aregrateful to the mothers and children who gave their time to participate in this study.

This research was supported by a grant to Mary K. Mullen from the Barbara R. DitmarsBequest, Harvard University.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Mary K. Mullen, Departmentof Psychology, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267.

Manuscript received July 26, 1994; revision accepted December 7, 1994 407


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408 Mary K. Mullen and Soonhyung Yi

that its development may be related to the acquisition of language (Bartlett,1932; Dudycha & Dudycha, 1933; Schachtel, 1947; Waldfogel, 1948). More

recent research has demonstrated that adults engage children in a processof co-constructing memories by explicitly guiding them in the productionof verbal accounts of their experiences (Eisenberg, 1985; Engel, 1986; Fivush& Hamond, 1990; Hudson, 1990; Nelson, 1988, 1990, 1993; Ratner, 1984;Sachs, 1983; Snow, 1990; Tessler; 1986). Snow (1990) conducted a longitudi-nal investigation of parent-child memory talk and found that, initially, par-ents provide almost all of the structure for producing past event narrativesthrough such means as asking leading questions and even providing answersto the questions for the child to repeat. In this way, they teach the child how

to generate a story describing personal experience. Over the course of time,the child is encouraged to take more and more responsibility in the co-con-struction process as the expected form of such an account is acquired.

The process of converting an experience into a narrative account shouldfacilitate later memory of it. It is well known that processing enhancesmemory (Craik, 1972). Indeed, Mandler (1984) has presented evidencewhich suggests that experiences that are not organized into a story structureare less likely to be remembered. The suggestion here is that past event talkwith young children not only increases the depth of processing of the

particular experiences discussed, but also provides a more general model forprocessing personal experiences for storage in memory. As the model be-comes internalized, the processing can begin to take place outside of thecontext of discussion. Thus, the childs early linguistic environment mayinfluence the development of autobiographical memory.

This theory is compatible with the Vygotskian view that a cognitiveprocess takes place first in the interpsychological realm (i.e., in the realm ofsocial interaction) and then comes to be transferred to the intrapsychologi-cal realm, taking place entirely within the childs mind (Vygotsky,

193411986). As adults verbally guide a child in forming descriptions ofexperiences, they may be teaching the child a number of concepts such as:what types of events are considered memorable, what aspects of thoseevents are considered memorable, how to organize events in a temporalsequence, how to make inferences about causality, how to make inferencesabout human intentions, and how to evaluate behavior. Through this proc-ess, children are, in a sense, learning how to remember personal experiences.They are learning how to process the information that they encounter inways that are valued by the people in their environment.

Cultures are likely to differ in such values and even in the degree towhich they value remembering personal experiences generally. A number ofresearchers have speculated that there may be cross-cultural differences inthe amount or content of parent-child talk about past experiences (Bruner,1990; Neisser, 1982; Nelson, 1990,1993; Pillemer & White, 1989). Such differ-


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Cultural Context of Talk About Past 409

ences would likely be related to differences in socialization goals and cul-tural values. For example, Markus and Kitayama (1991) observed that Asian

and Western cultures differ in the socialization of self-concept. In Asiancultures, the sense of self is constituted by the roles one plays in the networkof social relationships. Conformity to social norms, rather than individuality,is valued. Concern for how others feel is more important than expression ofones own feelings. In Western cultures, on the other hand, there is a strongemphasis on individuality, self-expression, and uniqueness. Ones personalhistory, or autobiographical story, is a central component of the individualssense of self (Ross, 1989). Thus, parents in a Western culture may be morelikely to talk about a childs experiences as a means of encouraging the child

to express his or her thoughts and feelings in order to develop a sense ofindividuality. These conversations would not only provide a model for re-membering ones experiences, but would also teach the child that memoriesfor personal experiences are considered important in the social world thathe or she inhabits. In an Asian culture, such interaction might be consideredundesirable in that it encourages the child to be self-centered. Indeed,anecdotally, Asians often express surprise at the amount of talk adultsgenerally engage in with children in the United States.

If cultures differ in the degree to which such talk is practiced, then one

would predict greater memory for early experiences in cultures which en-courage it. In four questionnaire studies, Mullen (1994) asked adults abouttheir earliest recollections of childhood and the ages at which the events ofthe memory occurred. Across all four studies, Caucasians reported signifi-cantly earlier memories than Asians, providing support for the idea thatmemory talk with children may be more valued in Western culture. In threeof these studies, the Asian group included both Asian Americans and sub-jects from several Asian countries (who had come to study in the UnitedStates). In the fourth study, the Asian subjects were all from Korea, and their

questionnaire was given in Korean. The difference between Asians andCaucasians in this study was larger than in the other three studies. Theaverage age of earliest memory reported by the Korean group was laterthan that reported by the Asian groups in the other three studies. Thisdifference may be due to the fact that all of the subjects in this study grewup in an Asian country (whereas the other studies included Asians who grewup in a Western country). Or, it may be that Koreans are more different fromCaucasians in terms of past event talk with children than are other Asiangroups. Either of these possible causes provides support for the idea that

culture plays a role in the development of autobiographical memory.A missing element, in terms of empirical support for the theory beingpresented, is direct evidence about whether these cultures do, in fact, differin the amount of past event talk parents engage in with their children. Thepurpose of the study presented here was to address this issue through


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observations of naturally-occurring talk about past events between mothersand young children in two cultural groups: Koreans and U.S. Caucasians. The

main prediction was that the Caucasian group would talk about past eventsmore often than the Korean group. It was also predicted that, on average,Caucasians would talk longer about each past event topic.

Several additional predictions were made regarding the content of mem-ory talk in the two cultures. Mullen (1994) found content differences in thedescriptions of earliest memories of Koreans and Caucasians. Nearly 80%of the memories reported by Koreans involved other people, compared toonly half of the memories reported by Caucasians. In addition, the memo-ries of Koreans were more likely than those of Caucasians to involve scold-ing or discipline for misbehavior. These differences are consistent with theobservations of Markus and Kitayama (1991) that Westerners are morefocused on the self and the development of individuality, whereas Asians aremore other-oriented and place more emphasis on conformity to behavioralexpectations. In terms of socialization goals, Westerners emphasize self-un-derstanding and self-expression, whereas Asians emphasize empathy withothers and fitting oneself into social norms. Consideration of such differ-ences led to the following predictions: a) Caucasian mother-child dyadswould be more likely to cast the child as a central character in the narrative;b) Caucasian dyads would be more likely to talk about the childs thoughtsor feelings about the event; c) Korean dyads would be more likely to talkabout the thoughts or feelings of others; d) Korean dyads would be morelikely to talk about social norms and behavioral expectations; e) Caucasiandyads would be more likely to talk about the childs individual attributes.

METHO

Subjects

The subjects were 16 mother~hild dyads, 8 from Korean families living inthe area of Seoul, Korea, and 8 from Caucasian families living in the areasof Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island. All were of mid-dle-class background. The mothers were college graduates, with averageages of 33 years for the Korean group and 37 years for the Caucasian group.The children in the two groups were matched on age, gender, and birthorder. Their ages ranged from 37 to 44 months, with a mean age of 40.1months for the Korean group and 40.9 months for the Caucasian group Ineach group there were 4 girls and 4 boys, and 3 first-born children and 5

later-born children (either second or third in birth order). All of the childrenparticipated in some form of preschool or childcare program.

The Korean participants were recruited via letters to preschool teacherswho then asked mothers if they would participate in the study. The childrenwho participated received a small gift. The U.S. subjects were recruited via


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letters placed in parents message boxes at preschools and via word ofmouth. They were offered 40 for participation in the study.

ProcedureThe mothers were told that they were participating in a study of child lan-guage development and were asked to record naturally occurring conversa-tions in their home environment. Because past event talk might typicallyoccur during different activities or times of day in the two cultures, tape re-cordings were collected from each dyad during their normal activities for oneentire day. Mother and child each wore a vest containing a small tape re-corder all of the time that they were together,from the time the child got up in

the morning to the time the child went to bed in the evening. Some of the chil-dren in both groups objected to wearing the vest some of the time, and it wassimply placed near them. The vast majority of the talk was audible on thetapes of both mothers and children. The duplicate sets of tapes made it possi-ble to maximize the accuracy of transcription whenever any talk was unclear.

Taping occurred on a day when the child attended a preschool or childcare program. The participants did not collect recordings during this time,but did record until separation and began recording again at reunion. If thechild took a nap at home or spent any other time separated from the mother

(e.g., while playing outside with a friend) recording was discontinued duringthese times.Each tape side lasted 1 hr and a beeper was provided to remind the

mother to change the tapes. At this time, the mother also provided a briefwritten description of the childs activities during the previous hour. Moth-ers were asked to try to ignore the recorders as much as possible and tointeract with their child as they normally would so that the conversationsrecorded would be the kinds of conversations that would occur on a typicalday. They were also told that if anything got recorded that they preferred

not to have on the tapes, they should feel free to go back and erase it at theend of the day. In fact, none did this.

TranscriptionAll episodes of past event talk were transcribed by native speakers of eachlanguage. The past was defined as any time prior to the onset of the cur-rently occurring event or focus of attention. An episode of past event talkwas defined as an instance of the mother and child talking about a specificpast event which the child had experienced or witnessed. An episode in

which only the mother or child referred to such an event was included if theother member of the dyad was present and part of the ongoing conversation.An episode began with the first utterance referring to the past event andended with the last utterance of talk related to the topic of the event. Talksurrounding the episode was often transcribed to provide context, but was


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not included in the analyses. Off-topic interruptions of the talk were tran-scribed but not included in the analyses.

An independent bilingual coder who was unaware of the purpose of thestudy listened to 1 hr of tape from each of the 16 participants and counted thenumber of instances of past event talk. The correlations of these counts withthose of the transcribers were .92 for the Koreans and -96 for the Caucasians.

All transcripts were double checked by having a transcriber listen to thetranscribed portions of the tapes a second time. The Korean transcripts werethen translated into English by a fluently bilingual research assistant. All ofthe coding was performed on the English transcripts. The transcripts werewritten in MinChat format, as described in the manual of the Child Lan-guage Data Exchange System (Mac~inney & Snow, 1985).

CodingEach episode of past event talk was coded for the total number of conver-sational turns taken by the child and mother, and for the number of utter-ances within each conversational turn. A conversational turn was defined asall of the talk by one speaker in between instances of talk by other speakers.It could include any number of utterances. An utterance was defined as thetalk of one speaker that occurs between intonational pauses. Such pauses

needed to be long enough that the succeeding talk was judged to indicate aseparate articulation. Utterances that were exact repeats of the previousutterance (if it was by the same speaker) were not counted. The number ofutterances was coded to give an indication of the length of conversationalturns. Although this is not an ideal measure, it presents fewer problems thana morphemic comparison based on languages as grammatically different asKorean and English.

Each episode was also coded for the presence or absence of: (a) refer-ences to the childs thoughts or feelings, (b) references to the thoughts or

feelings of anyone other than the child, (c) references to behavioral expec-tations or social norms, and (d) references to attributes of the child. Finally,each episode was coded for the childs role in the event: whether the childwas presented as a primary actor in the episode or as a secondary actor(recipient of anothers actions or observer of the event).

The independent bilingual coder SCOP d 32 episodes (2 selected randomlyfrom each dyad). Correlations between the two coders on all of the variablesranged from 0.84 to 0.96.

RESULTS

Amount of Talk About Past EventsThe main question of the study was whether the two groups would differ inhow much they talked about past events. It was predicted that the Cauca-


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sians would talk about past events more often. The total number of episodesof past event talk for each dyad in one full day of mother-child conversation

ranged from 3 to 27 in the Korean group and from 17 to 85 in the Caucasiangroup. But, because the idiosyncrasies of the day (time spent at school,napping, playing next door) varied across dyads, the amount of recordingtime varied. Korean dyads taped for an average of 5.9 hrs, whereas Cauca-sian dyads taped for an average of 7.4 hr. Thus, a more appropriate way tocompare the groups is in terms of the average number of episodes per hr.These scores ranged from .51 to 4.86 for the Korean dyads and from 2.56 to8.31 for the Caucasian dyads. The group means were 1.99 (SD = 1.46) forKoreans and 5.46 (SD = 2.16) for Caucasians: t(14) = 3.76,~ < .005. Thus,the Caucasian dyads talked about past events nearly three times as often asthe Korean dyads.

The next question regarded the amount of talk within each past eventepisode. It was predicted that the Caucasian dyads would talk more withinepisodes. The mean number of conversational turns per episode wascalculated for each dyad and the mean length (in number of utterances)of a conversational turn was calculated for each child and mother. Thegroups did not differ in terms of the number of conversational turns, withmeans of 8.22 (SD = 2.74) for Koreans and 8.01 (SD = 1.64) for Cau-casians: t(14) = .19. Nor did they differ in the length of the childrensturns, with means of 1.29 (SD = .28) for Koreans and 1.33 (SD = .lS)for Caucasians: t(14) = .31. They did differ on the mean length of a turnfor the mothers. Caucasian mothers had a mean of 1.82 (SD = .35) ut-terances per turn, whereas Korean mothers had a mean of 1.48 (SD =.24): t(14) = 2.22, p < .05.

Childs Role in Past Event EpisodesEach dyad received a score for the proportion of episodes in which the childwas presented as a primary actor in the events discussed. The prediction thatthe proportion would be higher for the Caucasian group was confirmed. Themean for Caucasian dyads was 82% (SD = 9.8), whereas the mean forKorean dyads was 69% (SD = 12.7): t(14) = 2.21,~ < .05.

Content of Talk About Past EventsEach dyad received a score for the proportion of episodes containing oneor more references to the thoughts or feelings of the child. The prediction

was that this proportion would be higher for Caucasians. The mean of theCaucasian group (35%, SD = 6.4) was more than twice that of the Koreangroup (15%, SD = 1.4): t(14) = 3.55,~ < -005.

The same score was calculated for references to the thoughts or feelingsof persons other than the child. Here the prediction was that the Korean


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group would be more likely to talk about the thoughts or feelings of others.In fact, the opposite result was obtained. The mean for the Caucasian group

was 21% (SD = 8.9) whereas the mean for the Korean group was 11% (SD= 11): t(14) = 2.10 p = .05.Each dyad also received a score for the proportion of episodes containing

references to behavioral expectations or social norms. As predicted, themean was higher for th Korean group (35%, SD = 19.2) than for theCaucasian group (18%, SD = 6.6): f(14) = 2.34,~


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DISCUSSION

The main prediction of the study, that the Caucasian dyads would engagein memory talk more often than the Korean dyads in the course of natu-rally-occurring conversation, was confirmed. The Caucasian dyads had, onaverage, almost three times as many episodes of past event talk per hras did the Korean dyads. In addition, Caucasian mothers talked more intheir conversational turns. The question of whether the larger amount ofpast event talk in the Caucasian group was the result of a greater overallamount of talk or represented a unique emphasis on that type of talkwas beyond the scope of this project. It is an important question thatmust be pursued, but in either case, the result obtained here suggests that

middle-class U.S. Caucasian children have more experience with discus-sions of past events than do middle-class Korean children. Combined withthe finding that Caucasian adults report earlier memories than Koreanadults (Mullen, 1994), these results support the theory that a childs earlyexperience with past event talk influences the development of autobio-graphical memory.

The results of this study also support the view that the content of pastevent talk is related to socialization goals and cultural values. Consistentwith the Western emphasis on developing a strong individual self-concept,

the Caucasian dyads were more likely to cast the child as a central characterin the narrative, to talk about the childs thoughts and feelings, and to makereferences to personal attributes of the child. It was predicted that Koreandyads would be more likely than Caucasian dyads to talk about the thoughtsor feelings of others because of their cultural emphasis on empathy andconsideration of others before oneself. In fact, the opposite was the case.Caucasians were more likely to talk about the thoughts and feelings of boththe child and others. In short, they took a more psychological approach totheir discussions. The Korean dyads, on the other hand, took a more norma-

tive approach, emphasizing behavioral expectations and social roles withgreater frequency than the Caucasian dyads. Indeed, empathy can be con-ceived of in terms of a normative model that applies generally to all rela-tions of a given type (e.g., when a child misbehaves, the mother feelsashamed), and therefore, does not require speculation about the thoughtsand feelings of each individual. This interpretation is a possible explanationfor the failure to support the prediction regarding talk about the thoughtsand feelings of others. Thus, the children in each culture were learning,through conversations about past events, which aspects of their experiences

to attend to.It must be acknowledged that a day spent wearing a tape recorder is, in

some respects, not a typical day. The mothers in this study probably tried toavoid recording anything embarrassing. And even though all of them surelyfound the situation somewhat strange, this was probably more true for the


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Korean group. One limitation of all cross-cultural research is that subjectsin different cultures may not experience their participation in the study in

the same way. Nonetheless, the participants in this study had to go about thebusiness of their day, and the conversations recorded were simply abouttopics that came up in this context: what happened at school, why a friendsmom was angry at him, last weeks trip to the park, yesterdays dinner.Perhaps some of the mothers made more of an effort to talk with theirchildren than they normally would because they knew that they were par-ticipating in a study of language development. But it is unlikely that such aneffect could account for the fact that Caucasian dyads talked about pastevents far more often than Korean dyads or for the differences observed in

the content of past event talk.The secondary analyses of the content variables (Table 1) suggest that thecontent differences in the talk of the two groups originated with the mothersand were beginning to be represented in the talk of the children. Whatadults choose to comment on and ask questions about is shaped by culturalvalues and provides a model for the childs own processing of experience.Nelson (1989) calls this conventionalizing the subjective account. Un-doubtedly, other forms of event talk, including discussions of ongoing activi-ties and of plans and expectations for the future, serve these functions as

well. But in some ways past event talk may be uniquely suited to the task oftransmitting a richly interpretive perspective on our experiences. Indeed,Miller and Sperry (1988) report that past event talk contains five times moreevaluative devices than other kinds of conversation. In past event talk weare temporally removed from the experience under discussion. The subjectsof the narrative, including the self, become characters in the sense thatthey are generated as actors in a context outside of the immediacy of thepresent moment. This temporal distance from the present provides an op-portunity for a kind of reflection on experience that may not often occur in

the midst of the effort to comprehend ongoing experience and determinehow to respond. Thus, the transmission of so~iocultural knowledge associ-ated with event talk in general may be most strongly represented in pastevent talk.

At the same time that children are learning about the social world theyinhabit, they are also developing a sense of self, as they see themselves castas characters in the stories of their experiences. Many researchers havepointed out that autobiographical memory and the sense of self are closelyinterwoven {Barclay, 1986; Fitzgerald, 1986; Fivush, 1988; Ross, 1989). In

constructing a story about your experiences, you are of necessity also con-structing a story about yourself. What, then, might substantial cultural dif-ferences in the frequency and content of such story telling mean? Theconception of selfhood in the two cultures may be experienced in verydifferent ways.


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In one culture, represented by the Caucasian group, children are learningto attend to their thoughts and feelings about their experiences, indeed

perhaps to develop thoughts and feelings about their experiences becauseothers often want to know what they are. They are being taught that eachperson has a collection of individual attributes that makes them unique, andthat it is important to discover and give expression to this individuality. Theconstruction of accounts of ones experiences is an important avenue to-wards achieving this goal. Indeed, the sense that the autobiographical nar-rative is central to self-concept is so strong in Western culture that itsmodels of psychotherapy are often conceptualized in terms of healing theself through rewriting the story (Bruner, 1990).

In the culture represented by the Korean group (which may extend toother Asian cultures with respect to the issues addressed here), children arelearning that each person has a collection of roles within the social network,and that there are behavioral expectations associated with these roles. Thesense of self comes from ones success at performing these roles. There maybe less need to differentiate oneself in terms of personal attributes, and thusless need for an elaborated autobiographical narrative. In such a context, thedetails of how one has experienced particular events may not be dwelledupon to the same degree. This account is supported by the finding thatCaucasian adults are more likely to report having thought about theirearliest memories than are Asian adults (Mullen, 1994).

Obviously, these are not absolute differences between cultures, but ratherdifferences in the relative importance of the various purposes of past eventtalk. In both groups, children are learning through these kinds of conversa-tions how to evaluate their experiences through the lines of their culture.Taylor (1989) describes the primacy of evaluating ones experiences, oftaking a perspective on events, in the construction of the sense of self. Thisevaluative orientation, frequently manifested in past event talk, is perhapsthe region in which culture, sense of self, and autobiographical memory aremost profoundly interwoven.

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