Dynamics of Autonomy and Relatedness across Lifespan in Autobiographical Narratives: Semantic and Susceptibility

This paper presents two studies. The first study was designed to determine whether expressions of autonomy and relatedness in autobiographical narrative vary by age of memories and by (sub) cultural specificity within one (Russian) language sample. In the first study, 40 older women were asked to tell “the story of life”. Half of the participants had lived their lives in rural areas of Russia and half were life-long city dwellers. Verbal markers of autonomy and relatedness were coded we have found that they are represented in narratives dynamically. In the rural sample in contrast with the rest of their past participants recollected their childhood and old age as individualistic. In the urban sample in contrast with the rest of their past participants recollected their childhood as collectivistic. To examine what happens to early memories if a person changes cultural context in youth we carried out the second study. We interviewed 20 old female participants who were born in village and moved into big city about 18-20 y.o. They experienced their childhood as rural subjects but recollected it as urban subjects. It supports the main view on constructive nature of autobiographical memory, which reshapes distant memories in accordance with working self's values.