Autobiographical memories, i.e., memories about ourselves, are an important part of our lives. They help us shape our own identity and show us which moments we consider fundamental and important to our life story. But do we remember the past more in a positive or negative light?
Cross-cultural research shows that the period between the ages of 15 and 30 is remarkably filled with positive events in our memory. Researchers sometimes call this phenomenon a “reminiscence bump”- meaning that we usually have a large number of positive memories of our youth. Negative and neutral memories are distributed more evenly across different age periods throughout life. A new study by our members Lenka Štěpánková and Stanislav Ježek therefore focused on what significant life events Czechs and Slovaks choose in their stories, how they influenced their lives, and whether their memories reflect this memory boom.
Authors built on their earlier research, which examined shared ideas about the typical course of life in Czechia and Slovakia. The authors of the current study decided to compare these “typical” scripts with real life stories and find out whether the aforementioned bump in positive memories appears. A total of 105 participants over the age of 40 were asked to identify the seven most important events in their lives, state their age at the time they occurred, their overall importance, and choose whether they remember these events positively or negatively.
We remember our youth more positively
The analysis showed that Czechs and Slovaks chose mainly positive events that correspond to our cultural life script as the seven most important moments of their lives: most people cited their wedding, the birth of a child, the start of their studies, or finding their life partner as important events in their lives. However, not all memories were positive; participants also included the death of parents, accidents, and divorce among their important life events. The authors also confirmed their hypothesis about the peak of memories - between the ages of 15 and 30, a large number of positive memories accumulated compared to other periods in life. Negative or neutral memories were spread more evenly throughout life. In addition, the authors found that positive script memories had a greater impact on their daily lives.
Negative experiences also have something to say
Although negative events were not mentioned as often as positive ones, their influence cannot be overlooked. It turned out that moments that differed from the cultural script—i.e., events that are not part of the cultural idea of a typical life story—have a strong impact on psychological experience. These include, for example, the death of a loved one, serious illness, accident, or divorce. Although such events were not mentioned as often, their transformative impact was comparable to positive script events—and even higher in psychological terms. The authors point out that it is precisely this psychological power of negative experiences that shows that in order to understand life stories, it is not enough to look only at the frequency of positive events – it is also necessary to take into account the more difficult moments that fundamentally shape a person's inner world.
Recommended citation:
Štěpánková, L., & Ježek, S. (2025). Transitional impact of important life events among Czechs and Slovaks. Memory, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2025.2557961
