Review Article


DOI :10.26650/SP2019-0063   IUP :10.26650/SP2019-0063    Full Text (PDF)

Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology

Aysu Mutlutürk

Collective memory has been studied extensively in various disciplines of the social sciences, such as sociology, history, anthropology, and political science, resulting in various definitions for the term. Although there is not a well-accepted conceptualization for collective memory across disciplines, the common ground that binds all uses of the term is that collective memory is a form of memory shared by a group, reshaped by social artifacts, and that has an important role in the social identity of the group’s members. Memory processes have been of central interest to psychologists. However, systematic investigation of the issues in collective memory from a psychological perspective has just begun. The review aims to apply the findings obtained from experimental studies in cognitive psychology to the issues in collective memory. This review focuses on the experimental studies on the role of social interaction in the reconstruction of memories and convergence among individuals on a shared representation of the past. The studies in experimental settings have generated simplified simulations of real life and suggest that social contagion of memory, collaborative recall, selective retrieval, and retrieval-induced forgetting in social contexts may represent cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation and retrieval of collective memories. After exploring these studies, the review focuses on the parallels between the experimental and exploratory studies on collective memory. Finally, the conclusion proposes that studies in the lab setting can contribute to understanding cognitive mechanisms underlying collective memories in real life, providing general principles to predict collective memories’ formation and maintenance. Although this review adopts a cognitive psychological perspective, it attempts to blend insights from various approaches, to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to studying collective memory and devise new research questions to improve the understanding of collective memory.

DOI :10.26650/SP2019-0063   IUP :10.26650/SP2019-0063    Full Text (PDF)

Bilişsel Psikoloji Bakış Açısından Sosyal Etkileşimin Toplumsal Bellek Üzerindeki Rolü

Aysu Mutlutürk

Toplumsal bellek, sosyal bilimlerin sosyoloji, tarih, antropoloji ve siyaset bilimi gibi çeşitli disiplinlerinde kapsamlı biçimde çalışılmıştır. Bu durum, terim hakkında çok çeşitli tanımlamaların ortaya çıkmasıyla sonuçlanmıştır. Toplumsal belleğin disiplinler arasında kabul gören bir tanımı olmasa da terimin tüm kullanımlarını bağlayan ortak zemin, toplumsal belleğin bir grup tarafından paylaşılan, sosyal bağlam ya da kültürel ürünler tarafından yeniden şekillendirilen ve grup üyelerinin sosyal kimliği üzerinde önemli rolü olan bir bellek formu olmasıdır. Bellek süreçleri, psikologların temel ilgi alanlarından biridir. Ancak ilginç bir biçimde, toplumsal belleğin sorularının psikoloji alanında sistematik olarak araştırılmasına henüz yeni başlanmıştır. Bu derlemenin amacı, bilişsel psikoloji alanındaki deneysel çalışmalardan elde edilen bulguların toplumsal belleğin sorularına uygulanmasıdır. Bu derleme özellikle sosyal etkileşimin belleğin yeniden yapılandırılmasındaki ve farklı bireylerin bellek temsillerinin birbirine yakınsayarak ortak bir geçmiş temsiline dönüşmesindeki rolüne yönelik deneysel çalışmalara odaklanmaktadır. Deneysel ortamda gerçek yaşamın basitleştirilmiş simülasyonlarını oluşturan bu çalışmalar, belleğin sosyal bulaşıcılığı, ortaklaşa hatırlama, sosyal bağlamda seçici hatırlama ve hatırlamaya bağlı unutma gibi paradigmaların toplumun ortak anılarının oluşumu ve hatırlanmasının altında yatan bilişsel mekanizmaların bir temsili olabileceğini ileri sürer. Derleme, bu çalışmaları inceledikten sonra, toplumsal bellek üzerine gerçekleştirilen deneysel ve betimleyici çalışmaların bulguları arasındaki paralelliklere odaklanacaktır. Derleme, son olarak, laboratuvar ortamındaki deneysel çalışmaların, toplumsal olaylara ilişkin anıların oluşumu ve hatırlanmasına yönelik genel prensipler sunarak, toplumsal belleğin altında yatan bilişsel mekanizmaların anlaşılmasına ilişkin katkı sunabileceği görüşüyle sonlanacaktır. Bu derleme, bilişsel psikoloji bakış açısını benimsemekle birlikte, çeşitli disiplinlerin farklı anlayışlarını harmanlayarak toplumsal bellek çalışmalarında disiplinler arası bir yaklaşımı teşvik etmeyi ve toplumsal belleğin daha iyi anlaşılmasına katkıda bulunacak yeni araştırma sorularına yön vermeyi ümit etmektedir.


EXTENDED ABSTRACT


Collective memory is widely discussed but poorly understood. This notion has been studied in various social sciences, such as sociology, history, anthropology, and political science, and recently embraced by psychology, which is surprising because memory is one of the central concerns in the field of psychology (Coman, Brown, Koppel, & Hirst, 2009a; Hirst & Echterhoff, 2008; Hirst & Manier, 2008). In this review, the study of collective memory is discussed from a psychological perspective. The aim is to apply the findings obtained from experimental studies in cognitive psychology to the issues of collective memory. In particular, this review explores the experimental studies on the role of social interaction in the reconstruction of memories and convergence among individuals on a shared representation of the past.

The review has four major parts. The first part discusses the conceptual oppositions in the field of collective memory research. One reason for the scarcity of collective memory studies within the discipline of psychology may be absence of a commonly accepted definition of the term across the fields of the social sciences. Until recently, social scientists have tended to treat collective memory as social representations not in the mind but in the world, such as cultural symbols, practices, archival records, and commemorations (Harris, Paterson, & Kemp, 2008; Hirst & Manier, 2008; Wertsch, 2002). Notably, from the psychological perspective, the agent of remembering is the individual and collective memory is represented in individuals’minds (See Hirst & Manier, 2008). A reconciling view is that collective memory is a form of memory shared by a group, reshaped by social artifacts, and that has an important role in the social identity of the group’s members (Coman et al., 2009a; Roediger & Abel, 2015).

The second part reviews the research on the reconstructive nature of human memory. Evidence has demonstrated that individuals may remember a story by reorganizing it based on existing schema (Bartlett, 1932/1995) and then mistakenly recall words that were highly typical category members but that did not exist in the given word list (Roediger & McDermott, 1995) and modify their memories of an event when post-event misleading information is provided (Chrobak & Zaragoza, 2008; Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978; Loftus & Palmer, 1974; Loftus & Zanni, 1975; Zaragoza & Mitchell, 1996).

After reviewing the research suggesting that individuals remember past events by reconstructing them rather than copying them in an accurate form, the third part explores how individuals reconstruct their memories through social interaction and come to share similar renderings of the past. Research on the reconstructive nature of collective memories employs various paradigms to understand how individual memories are transformed into shared memories (Barnier, Sutton, Harris, & Wilson, 2008; Hirst & Echterhoff, 2012; Stone, Coman, Brown, Koppel, & Hirst, 2012). For instance, some studies have demonstrated how one individual implants misleading memories into others’ minds in a conversational setting by using the social contagion paradigm (e.g., Meade & Roediger, 2002; Roediger, Meade, & Bergman, 2001). Employing a socially shared retrieval-induced paradigm, some studies have demonstrated how selective retrieval of memories by a speaker lead both the speaker and the listener to forget unmentioned memories (e.g., Coman & Hirst, 2011; Coman, Manier, & Hirst, 2009b; Cuc, Ozuru, Manier, & Hirst, 2006; Cuc, Koppel, & Hirst, 2007). Other studies, using collaborative recall and inhibition paradigm, have presented evidence on how individuals remember more in a group than they might when remembering alone, but less than the sum of the potential of all individuals in the group (e.g., Congleton & Rajaram, 2011; Rajaram & Pereira-Pasarin, 2007; Yaron-Antar & Nachson, 2006). These studies suggest that social contagion, selective retrieval, and retrieval-induced inhibition in social contexts may represent cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of collective memories.  

Based on this idea, the fourth part reviews studies on how individuals remember public events; hence, it explores the relation of the laboratory studies to the studies that have investigated changes in the content of collective memories (e.g., Coman, Stone, Castano, & Hirst, 2014; Coman & Hirst, 2015; Hirst et al., 2009) and the retrieval patterns of collective memories within and across groups (e.g., Corning, Gaidys, & Schuman, 2013; Schuman & Rodgers, 2004; Tekcan, Ece, Gülgöz, & Er, 2003).

Discussion

Overall, this paper reviews the parallels between experimental and exploratory studies on collective memory and concludes that understanding cognitive mechanisms of how individual memories are transformed into shared memories in the lab setting would provide general principles to predict the formation and maintenance of collective memories in real life. Although the review adopts a cognitive psychological perspective, it attempts to blend insights from different approaches, to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to studying collective memory and devise new research questions to improve the understanding of collective memory.


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APA

Mutlutürk, A. (2020). Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology. Studies in Psychology, 40(2), 285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


AMA

Mutlutürk A. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology. Studies in Psychology. 2020;40(2):285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


ABNT

Mutlutürk, A. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology. Studies in Psychology, [Publisher Location], v. 40, n. 2, p. 285-316, 2020.


Chicago: Author-Date Style

Mutlutürk, Aysu,. 2020. “Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology.” Studies in Psychology 40, no. 2: 285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


Chicago: Humanities Style

Mutlutürk, Aysu,. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology.” Studies in Psychology 40, no. 2 (Mar. 2024): 285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


Harvard: Australian Style

Mutlutürk, A 2020, 'Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology', Studies in Psychology, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 285-316, viewed 29 Mar. 2024, https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


Harvard: Author-Date Style

Mutlutürk, A. (2020) ‘Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology’, Studies in Psychology, 40(2), pp. 285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063 (29 Mar. 2024).


MLA

Mutlutürk, Aysu,. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology.” Studies in Psychology, vol. 40, no. 2, 2020, pp. 285-316. [Database Container], https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063


Vancouver

Mutlutürk A. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology. Studies in Psychology [Internet]. 29 Mar. 2024 [cited 29 Mar. 2024];40(2):285-316. Available from: https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063 doi: 10.26650/SP2019-0063


ISNAD

Mutlutürk, Aysu. Role of Social Interaction in Collective Memory from the Perspective of Cognitive Psychology”. Studies in Psychology 40/2 (Mar. 2024): 285-316. https://doi.org/10.26650/SP2019-0063



TIMELINE


Submitted29.08.2019
Accepted13.01.2020
Published Online16.11.2020

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