1University of Bari, Italy
2University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Flashbulb memories (FBMs) are defined as vivid, detailed, and long-lasting memories for attributes of the reception context of relevant public news (Brown & Kulik, 1977). Two sets of factors have been considered to account for their formation. The first encompasses the so-called encoding factors, corresponding to the characteristics of the emotional experience associated with learning of the news, and its cognitive antecedents (Finkenauer et al., 1998; Pillemer, 1984). The other set involves social processes both preceding and following the original encoding. When a given event takes place, expectations, knowledge and attitudes are spread out in social contexts about the fact and its protagonists, and this influences the way individuals perceive and remember their experience (Curci, Luminet, Finkenauer & Gisle, 2001; Conway et al., 1994). Additionally, the emotion felt when learning of the news triggers social sharing processes, which develop both in private conversations, and through the mass media (Finkenauer et al., 1998; McCloskey, Wible, & Cohen, 1988; Wright, 1993). The present paper aims to provide both conceptual and empirical basis for considering FBMs as a special class of memories deeply determined by social factors. Three correlational studies assessed the impact of emotional and social processes, by focusing on both the measurement of the construct and the structural process of formation. Findings from the three studies jointly considered showed that FBMs are highly influenced by social factors, thus representing a significant connection between individual and social dimensions of memory. Implications for a social account on autobiographical memory are discussed.
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