The effects of time and self-relevance on collective memories and collective future thinking

Abstract

This study examined the influence of time and self-relevance on collective memories. Participants recalled their memories of two events from 2020 that differed in self-relevance: the COVID-19 pandemic and a political event. Furthermore, each event was recalled at two time points: in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, participants also imagined a future pandemic and a future political event (the dissolution of the EU) to assess the extent to which representations of the collective future rely on representations of the collective past. Given the wide and complex nature of collective memory, we measured the type of information people remembered and imagined (personal vs. collective) and the common themes discussed by participants. Results showed that, in 2021, people recalled more personal information about the pandemic than the political event. By 2022, pandemic memories were recalled with more collective than personal information, similarly to political event memories, which remained primarily collective. For imagined future events, participants reported more collective than personal elements. Moreover, the themes described when imagining a future pandemic were similar to the ones recalled about the past pandemic. Themes about the pandemic also evolved into a more comprehensive view of the events over time. Overall, the findings suggest that the content of collective memories, especially self-relevant ones, evolves over time, emphasizing the constructive nature of collective memories and how it shapes collective future thinking.

Keywords: Autobiographical memory; Collective future thinking; Collective memory; Self-relevance effect; Time effect.