The 9/11 attacks inside and outside the US: testing four models of flashbulb memory formation across groups and the specific effects of social identity

Abstract

Flashbulb memories (FBMs) are consistent recollections of specific details of the reception context of events. Four theoretical models accounting for FBM formation (Brown & Kulik, 1977; Conway et al., 1994; Er, 2003; Finkenauer et al., 1998) were tested on average 21 and 524 days after the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 in two groups of participants (US, N=112; non-US, N=727). Structural equation modelling revealed that (1) a revision of Finkenauer et al.'s (1998) model provided the best fit indices in both the US and non-US groups, (2) several relations among latent variables that were predicted by the three other models (Brown & Kulik, 1977; Conway et al., 1994; Er, 2003) were not significant, (3) with respect to Finkenauer et al's model, the "direct path" (from novelty/surprise to FBMs) was found to be significant only for the US group, while the "indirect path" (from emotional states, rehearsal and event-memory to FBMs) was only significant for the non-US group. It is suggested that the specific activation of social identity in the US group can explain these differences.