Mnemonic convergence in a social network: Collective memory and extended influence

Research on the social influences on remembering has focused on how people influence one another's memory through direct conversation. This project examined indirect influence, that is, the influence of those to whom one may be connected through a social network. We extend Christakis and Fowler's (2007. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. The New England Journal of Medicine, 357(4), 370–379) discovery that factors may propagate across several degrees of influence; influences of social remembering may also propagate. In a naturalistic study, we tracked weekly recollections of a narrative in a small social network. Two individuals’ mnemonic convergence could be predicted by their degree of separation. Directly and indirectly connected pairs show more convergent remembering than unconnected pairs, indicating that conversation is not the only route by which two individuals may come to hold a shared representation of the past. This propagation of memories across the links of a social network is an important means by which a group converges on a collective memory.