Susan Bluck

University of Florida | UF · Department of Psychology

This special issue showcases research from around the world that takes a functional approach to autobiographical remembering. In doing so, it inspires researchers to reach out to new populations. This commentary begins with a brief history of the functional approach. Person-environment interactions, in this case how individuals use memory in their...

As scholars, remembering the historical past in one's area of study provides a foundation for purposefully pursuing knowledge. As individuals, remembering our personal past provides direction and purpose in everyday life. Taken together, these percepts provide the impetus for the current paper, which traces the contributions of six early pioneers w...

Ageing, by definition, involves moving across lived time. Grounded in developmental psychology, particularly lifespan developmental theory, this study examines two time-related factors that may affect psychological wellbeing in adulthood. Particularly, chronological age and perceived time left to live (i.e. future time perspective) are predicted to...

The sharp increase in dementia and age-related memory impairments worldwide has made reminiscence-based interventions attractive. Past research is mixed with little focus on self-functioning. The aims of this study were (i) to develop and assess the implementation of a reminiscence-based intervention , Digital Life Story Books, grounded in evidence...

Reflecting on Pillemer et al.’s (2024) comprehensive and authoritative article, our commentary flags three critical issues we believe could benefit from further conceptual specification to refine vicarious memory theory. First, we take the stand that vicarious memory is distinct from autobiographical memory and needs to be more precisely defined in...

Objective During Dignity Therapy a trained provider guides a patient to share their life story and legacy. Providers can demonstrate empathy through empathic self-disclosure (ESD), sharing something substantial and personal about themselves in response to the patient. The current study aims to identify the topics of ESDs and determine whether ESD f...

Considering one’s legacy is usual in later life but may be accentuated after receiving a serious and terminal cancer diagnosis. This may be particularly true when timing of the diagnosis is nonnormatively early, evoking the sense of losing future years of life. Acknowledging the severity of one’s illness may also promote focus on legacy. We investi...

This handbook unites the constructs of creativity and wisdom, introducing the term transformational creativity. The goal is to understand how creativity can best be used to serve the common good. That is, as humans race to address the major issues of our time, what matters most is not simply creativity but whether creativity is used wisely. In line...

The Thinking about Life Experiences (TALE) Scale is well‐used in the autobiographical memory literature. Through rigorous examination of its psychometric properties, this study aimed to validate a Korean version of the Thinking About Life Experiences Scale (TALE‐K) with Korean adults. Data were collected through an online survey. The TALE‐K, and fo...

The positive death movement has popularized considering one's mortality. Stemming from this, Before I Die Walls erected globally prompt individual reflection on life goals, considering life's finitude. The aims of the study: (i) examined relative extent of three categories of responses to a Before I Die task, moderated by age, and (ii) tested wheth...

Nearly 600,000 older Americans die a cancer-related death annually. Maintaining dignity is central to their quality of life. Dignity Therapy (DT; Chochinov, 2005) was designed to preserve dignity despite health declines. Patients report benefits of DT but mechanisms have not been empirically investigated. Grounded in gerontological life review rese...

Objective: Personal memories of the death of a spouse can guide bereavement adjustment. Place of death and quality of death are end-of-life factors that are likely to influence death experiences and formation of subsequent personal memories. The current study employs narrative content-analysis to examine how place and quality of death relate to aff...

Older adults exhibit a stronger sense of self-continuity than the young. How do they accomplish that? The present study examines that issue using a life story lens. We investigated (a) whether older adults differ from the young when narrating self-disruptive (i.e., compared to nondisruptive) personal life events in the extent to which they focus on...

Older adults exhibit a stronger sense of self-continuity than the young. How do they accomplish that? The present study examines that issue using a life story lens. We investigated (a) whether older adults differ from the young when narrating self-disruptive (i.e., compared to nondisruptive) personal life events in the extent to which they focus on...

Research has suggested that advertisements framed in reference to the reminiscence bump (i.e., adolescent and early adulthood years) are more effective than advertisements that focused on other periods within a U.S. sample. The current study examines whether the bump effect varies across culture (the United States vs. South Korea). Using a 3 (time...

The Psychology of Wisdom: An Introduction is the first comprehensive coursebook on wisdom, providing an engaging, balanced, and expert introduction to the psychology of wisdom. It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the psychological science of wisdom, covering wide-ranging perspectives. Each chapter includes extensive pedagogy, incl...

Late life is still often characterized as a time of loss and decline. The current study moved beyond this view, using both the resilience framework and the life story approach to highlight the rich life experiences of older adults. Doing so created an opportunity to explore perspectives on sense of purpose in life, from the vantage point of old age...

Classic lifespan developmental theory describes emerging adulthood and the transition to adulthood as important periods for thinking about one’s future life trajectory. Today, youth are facing far-reaching changes to daily life due to COVID-19. This may have negative effects on their future outlook, and the extent of such effects may be related to...

How the good life manifests in one’s narrative identity may be shaped by their consideration that their life story will have an ending. This study takes a eudaimonic approach, investigating human virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) as central to the good life. Since reflection on life’s finitude may depend on age, three adult life phases were sampl...

Objectives Intervention fidelity is imperative to ensure confidence in study results and intervention replication in research and clinical settings. Like many brief protocol psychotherapies, Dignity Therapy lacks sufficient evidence of intervention fidelity. To overcome this gap, our study purpose was to examine intervention fidelity among therapis...

Memories from the dying days of a deceased spouse are vividly recalled and can guide grief adjustment in older adulthood (Mroz & Bluck, 2018). End-of-life factors (e.g., place of death, quality of death) likely impact the nature of recall of such memories over time. Intersecting psychology and palliative care perspectives, the current study employs...

Unique life challenges occur across life phases, including later life. Life story research suggests that the way challenges are narrated has consequences for multiple domains of well-being. Two factors for positively reframing challenges are one’s sense of purpose in life (Windsor et al., 2015) and redemption (McAdams et al., 2001). This study used...

Objectives: Remembering one’s personal past serves psychosocial functions. Adaptive use of autobiographical memory is related to well-being but little research has focused on grief. We address this in two studies theoretically grounded in the model of reminiscence and health. Method: Participants were adults who were actively grieving, and in both...

Objective Dignity therapy (DT) is a guided process conducted by a health professional for reviewing one's life to promote dignity through the illness process. Empathic communication has been shown to be important in clinical interactions but has yet to be examined in the DT interview session. The Empathic Communication Coding System (ECCS) is a val...

Background Dignity Therapy (DT) has been implemented over the past 20 years, but a detailed training protocol is not available to facilitate consistency of its implementation. Consistent training positively impacts intervention reproducibility. Objective The objective of this article is to describe a detailed method for DT therapist training. Met...

Background Nearly 500,000 older Americans die a cancer-related death annually. Best practices for seriously ill patients include palliative care that aids in promoting personal dignity. Dignity Therapy is an internationally recognized therapeutic intervention designed to enhance dignity for the seriously ill. Theoretically, Dignity Therapy provides...

The reminiscence bump phenomenon is well established: adults in the second half of life remember more events from their youth than from other periods. Almost no research has focused, however, on the adaptive value of the reminiscence bump for adult well-being. Grounded in a life story approach, this research examined whether perceiving that one had...

This chapter reviews three historical traditions that have informed the study of remembering the personal past: cognitive psychology, gerontology, and personality psychology. Each tradition’s conceptualization of remembering is reviewed followed by empirical work on the personal past in that area with an emphasis on age findings. Research grounded...

Nearly 500,000 older Americans die a cancer-related death each year (National Vital Statistics Report, 2018). Following a diagnosis of a serious illness like cancer, maintaining a sense of dignity is central to a patient’s wellbeing. Dignity Therapy (DT) was recently introduced as an intervention to enhance dignity for terminally ill patients (Choc...

The death of a loved one is a challenging but also normative occurrence in later life (e.g., Thomson et al, 2018). Experiencing the death of others typically increases with age, so personal reaction to loss becomes an ongoing process (Harrop et al., 2016). When adults lose someone, the deceased person is often ‘gone but not forgotten.’ That is, the...

Although the types of events that occur across life phases may vary, experiencing multiple life challenges in a short time-frame can disrupt mental health (Zepinic, 2016). Maintaining self-continuity (i.e., sense of being the same person over time) when experiencing challenges may, however, foster resilience (Masten, 2001). This study investigated,...

Remembering one’s personal past can serve adaptive psychosocial functions (Bluck, Alea, & Demiray, 2010). Autobiographical remembering has been related to well-being in older age but little research has focused on grief. We address this issue in two studies grounded in the model of reminiscence and health in older adulthood (Cappeliez & O’Rourke, 2...

Memories from the very end of the life of a deceased spouse (i.e., their dying days) are frequently carried with the bereaved as major markers in their own life stories. The current study identifies functions of these memories. Older adults (age 70-96; N = 53) told two memories from their spouse’s dying days, then self-rated them for serving direct...

Reflection on memorialization may differentially influence nomination and narration of self-defining memories across the lifespan, including the extent to which positive character strengths (i.e., virtues) are represented. We investigated characteristics of self-defining memories across adulthood and in the context of being memorialized after death...

Objectives: Older adults have repeatedly been referred to as more physically vulnerable during the COVID -19 pandemic. The pandemic, however, is not only about becoming physically ill. It has many psychosocial aspects: people are exposed to myriad life challenges. The life story approach does not ignore physical status but also emphasizes psychoso...

Objectives Self-functioning, one aspect of mental health, is positive in later life. Although experiencing challenges may disrupt mental health, internal resources can foster resilience. This study examines how the frequency of recent challenges relates to current self-functioning. Perceived personality continuity, one's sense of maintaining their...

We investigated how death attitudes and experience relate to perspectives on advance care planning (ACP) in young adulthood, and whether attending a Death over Dinner event affects perspectives on ACP. Participants (N = 109) were assigned to a Death over Dinner or waitlist control condition, completing pretest and post-test measures. Higher Death R...

From an ecological perspective, understanding the form, the structure, of autobiographical memory requires examining the functions it serves in human life. The chapter begins with a review of the distant and then the more recent history of the functional perspective on autobiographical memory. That done, the bulk of the chapter addresses current co...

This study examines: (i) whether recalling stressful autobiographical events results in anxiety, (ii) the relation of memory qualities to anxiety, and (iii) the relation of future time perspective and personal intimacy to experiencing anxiety. Participants (N = 120) completed Future Time Perspective, Personal Intimacy and State Anxiety scales. They...

We have all had difficult times and challenges in our lives, and most of us feel that we learned something from those experiences. At the same time, few people actually become wise in the course of their lives - while most of us become (or remain) well-adapted and happy, generally satisfied, or even bitter or depressed. Why is it that some people,...

Grounded in the ecological approach, research has charted several adaptive functions of autobiographical remembering. Each represents a rather different psychosocial domain (i.e., self, social, directive). The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of each of a set of variables, controlling for all others, in predicting use of aut...

The experience of loss has not often been studied in the life story literature. Life disruption when loss of a loved one occurs may make loss events distinct, even from other challenges, when recalled. Optimally, individuals incorporate such events into their life story in a way that allows them to reflect positively on their life overall. We sugge...

Many nurses report a lack of confidence providing care for patients facing a life-threatening illness. Palliative care leaders have devised primary palliative nursing care competencies (CARES [Competencies And Recommendations for Educating undergraduate nursing Students]) that all students should achieve. In this study, nursing students participate...

Objective: This study identifies health care providers' perspectives on palliative care at end of life (EOL) in a neuromedicine-intensive care unit (Neuro-ICU) and barriers to providing palliative care. Background: Provider's EOL expertise is crucial in making timely referrals to palliative care as expectation of patient death can be high. Barri...

Background: The nursing role includes providing compassionate care at the end of life, yet many nurses feel unprepared to provide such care. We describe nursing students' reactions during participation in an experiential immersion in palliative care in which they interacted with seriously ill patients through gifting handmade shawls. Method: Aft...

Why do some people become exemplars of wisdom in the course of their lives, while most of us do not? The development of wisdom entails a complex interaction of personality, life experiences, and self-regulation that has hardly been empirically investigated. In this symposium, leading wisdom researchers present new findings highlighting important fa...

Receiving another's autobiographical story may serve to elicit feelings of liking and empathy for the story sharer. Research has mostly examined social functions of autobiographical stories for in‐person communications. The current experiment (N = 60) examined whether levels of liking, closeness, and empathy felt for a stranger (female confederate)...

This article is a tribute to James Birren (1918- 2016), a pioneer in Gerontology. Among his many contributions was the development of the Guided Autobiography (Birren & Deutchman, 1991). This structured reminiscence technique includes various themes, but innovatively, explores life experience with death as a key component of individuals’ lives. Ins...

People’s preferences for memorializing loved ones vary and may depend on their personal attitudes and experiences with death. Participants (N = 145) completed the Memorializing Preferences Checklist and measures of personal attitudes and life experiences with death. Factor analysis identified four Memorializing Preferences. In terms of predicting p...

Humans remember their past and consider their future. Nostalgic advertising, focused on the personal past, increases positive consumer response to products. This research examines how future time perspective (FTP) moderates that effect. Based on socioemotional selectivity theory, the products studied represent goals individuals have when time feels...

The present study examines the role of self-defining memories in predicting self-esteem using a 1-year longitudinal design with an adult lifespan sample (N = 1,216; age range 18–92; Mage = 49.52; SDage = 17.25). The interplay between narrators’ personality at the life story level and two social-cognitive processes, meaning-making and functional mem...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of nostalgic marketing on consumer decisions, including the relation of nostalgia to perceived self-continuity, brand attitude (BA), and purchase intent (PI). Design/methodology/approach The study uses an experimental design that compares individuals’ responses to past-focussed (nostalgic...

Nostalgic advertising uses images relevant to past periods in individuals' lives to market products. The current study examines the reminiscence bump in a new context: reactions to nostalgic advertising. We examine diachronic relevance and its influence on purchase intent using a 3 (time frame: bump advertisements, non-bump past advertisements, pre...

Regardless of age, making healthy lifestyle choices is prudent. Despite that, individuals of all ages sometimes have difficulty choosing the healthy option. We argue that individuals' view of the future and position in the life span affects their current lifestyle choices. We capture the multidimensionality of future thinking by assessing 3 types o...

Older adults sometimes exhibit higher levels of off-target verbosity during story recall than do young adults. This appears as the inclusion of extraneous information not directly relevant to the topic. Some production of such material has been clearly related to cognitive decline, particularly older adults' inability to inhibit production of irrel...

The task of identity development is a process of balancing multiple values (Grotevant & Cooper, 1998). For young women living in a society where values are in transition, such as Taiwan, this task may be particularly challenging. Forging their identity as an adult woman may have implications for their well-being. Adopting a mixed-method approach, t...

The study addresses cultural and person-level factors contributing to emerging adult’s use of memory to serve adaptive functions. The focus is on three functions: self-continuity, social-bonding and directing behaviour. Taiwanese (N = 85, 52 women) and American (N = 95, 51 women) emerging adults completed the Thinking about Life Experiences scale,...

Sharing stories is an important social activity in everyday life. This study used fine-grained content analysis to investigate the accuracy of recall of two central story elements: the gist and detail of socially-relevant stories. Younger (M age = 28.06) and older (M age = 75.03) American men and women (N = 63) recalled fictional stories that were...

Multiple and interacting contextual (culture, life phase) and person-specific predictors (i.e., personality, tendency to think-talk about the past) of the functions of autobiographical memory were examined using the Thinking about Life Experiences Scale. American (N = 174) and Trinidadian (N = 182) young and older adults self-reported how frequentl...

We all experience challenges in our lives, and probably most of us feel we have learned something from the challenges we have encountered. But why do some (few) people learn things that make them wiser over their life course - while others become (or remain) rigid, bitter, depressed, superficially content, or overly selfinvolved? Little theoretical...

Two studies (N = 80; N = 91) investigated whether sharing an autobiographical memory increases empathy for a person experiencing chronic pain. Across studies, empathy was assessed after reading a pain‐related narrative of either a 25‐ or 85‐year‐old target and again after assignment to one of two recall conditions. Conditions involved recalling a p...

Beginning at least in adolescence, humans are unique from other animals in the combination of having a conscious, reflective self and being aware of their movement through chronological time. Together, these create the need to maintain a sense of self-continuity across the lifespan. We review theory and research from the autobiographical memory and...

Two studies in different cultures (Study 1: USA, N=174, Study 2: Trinidad, N=167) examined whether meaning making, (i.e., both searching for meaning, and directing behaviour) is positively related to subjective well-being (SWB) by age (younger, older adults). In both studies, participants self-reported engagement in meaning making, and SWB (e.g., a...