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BLUCK ET AL.TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS
A TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS:
THE SELF–REPORTED USES OF
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
Susan Bluck and Nicole Alea
University of Florida
Tilmann Habermas
University of Frankfurt
David C. Rubin
Duke University
Theories hold that autobiographical memory serves several broad functions
(directive, self, and social). In the current study, items were derived from the
theoretical literature to create the Thinking About Life Experiences (TALE)
questionnaire to empirically assess these three functions. Participants (
N
=
167) completed the TALE. To examine convergent validity, they also rated
their overall tendency to think about and to talk about the past and completed
the Reminiscence Functions Scale (Webster, 1997). The results lend support to
the existence of these theoretical functions, but also offer room for refinements
in future thinking about both the breadth and specificity of the functions that
autobiographical memory serves.
Memory research in general, and research on autobiographical
memory (AM) in particular, has focused on how, how much, and
how accurately, people remember their past. Despite the importance
of these aspects of remembering, they do not offer a full palette for
understanding human memory. Two relatively understudied areas
91
Susan Bluck,Center for Gerontological Studies andDepartment of Psychology, Univer
-
sity of Florida; Nicole Alea, Department of Psychology, University of Florida; Tilmann
Habermas, Institute for Psychoanalysis, University ofFrankfurt;David Rubin, Psychology
Department, Duke University. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad
-
dressed to SusanBluck,University of Florida, P.O. Box 115911,Gainesville,FL 32611–5911;
E-mail: bluck@ufl.edu.
Social Cognition, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2005, pp. 91-117
are memory content (Gigerenzer, 1997; Linton, 1986), and function
(Neisser, 1978). Addressing the contents of memory is clearly an im
-
portant area for future research and theory building. Our current
work, however, grounded in an ecological approach (Graumann,
1986; Neisser, 1986), investigates the functions of AM. We begin by
exploring the utility of the functional approach and then present a re
-
view of three broad functions of AM. Though this literature is rich
theoretically, not much empirical work exists. Thus the goal of our
study was to operationalize the theorized functions of AM. First,
findings from the use of a new questionnaire, the TALE (Thinking
About Life Experiences), are presented and discussed.
WHY TAKE A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH?
Function can have (at least) two meanings, connoting either use or
adaptivity (i.e., adaptive versus maladaptive). These two meanings
are related, but for now we take the simpler definition, that is, what
do individuals use thememories of theirlife for? A later development
in any program of research on function would be the identification of
adaptive and maladaptive ways in which memory is employed in
everyday life. In the current work, we do not explicitly explore
adaptivity, but focus on function in terms of individuals’
self–reported uses of AM.
Various researchers have described the benefits of a functional ap-
proach to memory (e.g., Baddeley, 1987; Bruce, 1989; Neisser, 1978).
The primary concern is not how well humans remember their per
-
sonal past (though those features often play some role), but why hu
-
mans remember both mundane and significant life events, often over
long periods of time. Examining function provides a different and po
-
tentially complementary view of the remembering individual: the or
-
ganism is not simply an information processor (emphasis is on
memory capacity and veridicality) but rather an organism processing
information in ecological context (emphasis is on memory utility).
THREE THEORETICAL FUNCTIONS OF
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
What functions does it serve for people to remember, reflect on, and
share the experiences of their lives? While different researchers have
92 BLUCK ET AL.
focused on different subsets of functions, most hypothesized func
-
tions fit into one of three categories. These categories are well repre
-
sented in Pillemer’s (1992) formulation of AM as having directive
(planning for present and future behaviors), self (self–continuity,
psychodynamic integrity), and communicative (social bonding)
functions. To expand this scope, we refer to these three more gener
-
ally as directive, self, and social functions (Bluck & Alea, 2002).
The Directive Function. The directive function of AM involves us
-
ing the past to guide present and future thought and behavior.
Pillemer (1998) reviews a number of ways in which AM can be direc
-
tive. For example, Cohen (1989, 1998) has argued that AM can serve
as an aid to solving problems and to the development of opinions
and attitudes. Baddeley (1987) argues that autobiographical mem
-
ory allows us toask new questions of old information in order both to
solve problems in the present and to predict future events. Lockhart
(1989) offers a similar idea, suggesting that the major function of AM
is to provide flexibility in the construction and updating of rules that
allow individuals to comprehend the past and to predict future out-
comes. Robinson and Swanson (1990) take this idea in a more social
direction, arguing that AM helps us to use our own past experience
to construct models that allow us to understand the inner world of
others and thereby to predict their future behavior. Data tend to be
consistent with these ideas: individuals report remembering past
events and the lessons they learned from them as useful in guiding
present or future behavior (Bluck & Glück, 2004; McCabe, Capron, &
Peterson, 1991; Pratt, Arnold, Norris, & Filyer, 1999).
The Self Function. Many theoretical formulations emphasize the
function of AM in the continuity of the self (e.g., Bluck & Levine,
1998; Brewer, 1986). While these share a similarity to Pillemer’s
(1992) “psychodynamic function” (emphasizing the dynamic emo
-
tional use of AM), other researchers have not necessarily embraced
the psychodynamic aspect. Instead, knowledge of the self in the past
and as projected into the future has been seen as a critical type of
self–knowledge (Neisser, 1988). For example, Conway (1996) claims
that the adequacy of autobiographical knowledge depends on its
ability to support and promote continuity and development of the
self. Similarly, a hypothesized function of the personal past is to pre
-
serve a sense of being a coherent person over time (Barclay, 1996).
Fivush (1998) describes how this coherent sense of self–over–time
develops in young children, and the developmental role of the self
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 93
function has been extended to describe the emergence of the life
story in adolescence (Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 1985).
Some have argued that autobiographical knowledge may be espe
-
cially important when the self is in adverse conditions that required
self–change (Robinson, 1986). Regardless of imminent challenges,
however, self functions, such as emotion regulation (Pasupathi,
2003) and self–concept preservation and enhancement (Wilson &
Ross, 2003), have been suggested as normative and useful aspects of
self–regulation across adulthood (Cohen, 1998).
The Social Function. The importance of AM in developing, main
-
taining, and nurturing social bonds has been noted repeatedly (e.g.,
Nelson, 1993; Pillemer, 1998) and even tied to potential evolutionary
adaptivity (Neisser, 1988). The most basic social function AM serves
is to provide material for conversation, thus facilitating social inter
-
action (Cohen, 1998). Sharing personal memories makes one’s con-
tribution to conversations more believable and persuasive (Pillemer,
1992). Autobiographical memory also may allow us to better under-
stand and empathize with others (Cohen, 1998). For instance, shar-
ing personal memories can engage the listener and elicit empathic
responses, particularly if the listener responds with a personal mem-
ory of a similar experience (Pillemer, 1992). Providing others with in-
formation about one’s self is another function that memory serves in
initiating new social relationships (Cohen, 1998). The importance
that AM serves for social bonding is highlighted by the fact that so-
cial relationships can suffer when episodic remembering is impaired
(Robinson & Swanson, 1990). Note that memories can be shared with
those who did or did not take part in the remembered event: sharing
AMs with someone who was not present provides the listener with
information about one’s self, while sharing memories with someone
who also was present can serve an intimacy or bonding function
(Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 1996).
A TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS: THE CURRENT STUDY
The three broad functions outlined above were derived by examin
-
ing theoretical work, as well as interpretations and speculations
found in the introductions and discussions of empirical articles on
AM. The intuitive and theoretical appeal of the three functions is
clear. Only three projects, however, have examined the functions of
AM empirically (Hyman & Faries, 1992; Pasupathi, Lucas, &
Coombs, 2002; Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, & Vogl, 2003). In two
94 BLUCK ET AL.
related studies, Hyman and Faries (1992) explored the functions of
AM. In one study, individuals were asked to report and describe past
events that they had talked about often with others. In the second
study, individuals generated autobiographical memories to cue
words and described previous times when they had thought or
talked about the memory. The results from the first study revealed
that individuals talk about memories in order to share experiences,
provide information and advice, or to describe themselves to others.
The results from the second study suggested that some memories are
used for private self functions (not shared with others) and some are
used to inform others about one’s self and life. The authors con
-
cluded that memory plays both selfand social functions but that little
support for the directive function was evident in their data.
Walker and colleagues report similar data using a somewhat dif
-
ferent framework (Walker et al., 2003). In two studies, participants
listed several autobiographical events that had occurred within the
last six months. They then estimated the number of times that they
had rehearsed each event for one of several reasons. Alhough the au-
thors refer to these as reasons for rehearsal, they also might be
thought of as functions of recalling memories. As in Hyman and
Faries’ (1992) research, in both studies the most frequent reason that
people rehearsed events (recalled or retold memories) was for the
purpose of talking to others (i.e., social function). Other reasons for
thinking or talking about memories were non–social, including
recalling the event’s details or associated emotions.
A more recent study used a different (i.e., not self–report) method
to examine the functions of AM (Pasupathi et al., 2002). In this work,
middle–aged and older adult married couples were asked to discuss
past pleasant and unpleasant topics. Couples’ conversations were
then coded for the functions of AM that emerged during these dis
-
cussions. The functions of AM previously identified in the literature,
such as using the past during conversations for planning and prob
-
lem solving (directive), to explain oneself to others (self), and for per
-
suasive reasons (social), were evidenced in spontaneous speech in
these couples’ conversations.
Because of the widespread theoretical and interpretive use of the
concept of function, in combination with the dearth of empirical
work, we designed the following study to begin examining the use of
AM to serve directive, self, and social functions in everyday life. This
might have been done in a variety of more sophisticated manners,
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 95
but we began with the straightforward and face valid approach of
simply asking people what they use AM for (i.e., obtaining self–re
-
ports). To do this, we developed the Thinking About Life Experi
-
ences (TALE) Questionnaire. Items that represent directive, self, and
social functions were created using statements and claims made in
the theoretical literature reviewed above. The basic aim of the study
was to examine whether the three functions that have been men
-
tioned repeatedly in the literature would emerge in a factor analysis
of the items on the TALE. To validate the obtained factor structure,
we also administered the Reminiscence Functions Scale (RFS; Web
-
ster, 1993), an empirically derived scale that examines people’s rea
-
sons for reminiscing about specific episodes. The TALE and RFS are
discussed in more detail below, highlighting the ways in which the
instruments are both similar and different.
METHODS
Participants
Participants were 167 undergraduate students (87 women and 80
men) at Duke University who ranged in age from 18 to 21 (M = 18.44
years, SD = .73). Students received course credit for participation.
Substituting means for missing data can distort means and reduce
correlations among variables (Gorsuch, 1983) thus, we dropped six
participants with missing data from analyses, which resulted in a fi
-
nal sample size of 161. The sample size is satisfactory for conducting
exploratory factor analysis as long as factor loadings below .40 are
not interpreted (Gorsuch, 1983).
Procedure and Measures
As part of a larger study, participants completed two questionnaires:
the TALE and the Reminiscence Functions Scale (RFS; Webster,
1993). All participants completed the TALE questionnaire and then
the RFS.
Thinking about Life Experiences Questionnaire. The TALE is a the
-
ory–based questionnaire developed for use in this study. It assesses
the three theoretical functions of AM: the directive function, the
self–function, and the social function. Individual items were derived
96 BLUCK ET AL.
from a review of the theoretical literature (e.g., Cohen, 1998; Hyman
& Faries, 1992; Pillemer, 1992), discussion sections of empirical arti
-
cles on other aspects of AM in which functions are mentioned (e.g.,
Nelson, 1993), and book chapters in which previous authors have al
-
luded to AM’s functions (e.g., Brewer, 1986; Neisser, 1978).
The questionnaire instructions were designed to focus not only on
remembering specific episodes and events but also on how past
events and larger life periods are connected with the present (i.e., not
just AM but also autobiographical reasoning; Habermas & Bluck,
2000). Instructions for the questionnaire read: “Sometimes people
think back over their life or talk to other people about their life—it
may be about things that happened quite a long time ago or more re
-
cently. We are not so interested in the times that you think back over
specific events as in when and how you bring together and connect
the events and periods of your life.”
To establish individuals’ overall tendency for thinking about and
talking about the past, participants first provide responses to two in-
troductory questions: “How often do you think back over your life?”
and “How often do you talk to others about what’s happened in your
life so far?” To these items, and throughout the questionnaire, re-
sponses were made on a 6–point Likert–type scale, ranging from
never (1) to very frequently (6).
After these two general questions, there are 28 items assessing the
three theoretical functions of AM. The stem statement for each item is
“I think back over or talk about my life or certain periods of my life . . .”
Table 1 lists the TALEitems corresponding to thetheoretically derived
self (10 items), social (8 items), and directive (10 items) functions of
AM. One version of the questionnaire, with items in random order,
was given to all participants.
Reminiscence Functions Scale. Although the TALE and the RFS mea
-
sures are unique in several ways, they also have conceptual overlap:
both measure individuals’ self–reported reasons for thinking or talk
-
ing about some aspect of the past. Thus, the RFS (Webster, 1993) was
included in the current study to assess convergent validity of the
newly developed TALE. We expected some, but not full, overlap be
-
tween these measures of reminiscence functions and AM functions
(see Bluck & Alea, 2002; Webster, 2003).
The RFS is a 43–item measure that assesses the functions of remi
-
niscing. Items were originally generated empirically by having par
-
ticipants list, in open–ended form, reasons for reminiscing. It since
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 97
98 BLUCK ET AL.
TABLE 1. Theoretically Derived TALE Items for the Directive, Self, and Social
Functions of AM
Item Directive Function
Q1 When I feel that if I think about something bad that happened I can learn some
lesson from it.
Q2 When I want to make plans for the future.
Q3 When I think about my future goals.
Q4 When I am facing a challenge and I want to give myself confidence.
Q5 When I want to learn from my past mistakes.
Q6 When I need to make a life choice and I am uncertain which path to take.
Q7 When I am searching for a solution to a problem.
Q8 When I want to remember how others have reacted to me in the past in order
to decide how to act now.
Q9 In order to try to remember advice someone gave me because I don’t know
what to do.
Q10 When I want to better understand my current problems.
Self Function
Q11 When something unexpected happens to me and I want to fit it into my view
of my life.
Q12 When I have hurt somebody and I feel bad and I want to remind myself that I
am basically still a good person.
Q13 When I am concerned about whether I am still the same type of person that I
was earlier.
Q14 When I want to understand how I have changed from who I was before.
Q15 When I want to see if my life has an overall theme.
Q16 When I am concerned about whether my beliefs or values have changed over
time.
Q17 When I want to understand who I am now.
Q18 When I want to reinterpret old events in the light of things that have happened
since.
Q19 When I feel down and I want to make myself feel better.
Q20 When something happens to me and I want to look back to see what caused it.
Social Function
Q21 When I want to make myself feel better by talking to others who have had sim
-
ilar past experiences.
Q22 When I want to make someone else feel better by talking to them about my
similar past experiences.
Q23 When I want to introduce myself to people or to tell others more about me.
Q24 When I want to develop a closer relationship with someone.
Q25 When I want to strengthen a friendship by sharing old memories with friends.
Q26 When I hope to also learn more about that other person’s life.
Q27 When I hope to also find out what that other person is like.
Q28 When I want to help someone by telling them about my own past experiences.
has been validated in reference to personality measures and the con
-
vergence of the subscales with life-phase concerns (Webster, 1995,
1997; Webster & McCall, 1999). The instructions for the RFS are: “At
different points throughout their lives, most adults think about their
past. Recalling earlier times can happen spontaneously or deliber
-
ately, privately or with other people, and may involve remembering
both happy and sad episodes. The process of recalling memories
from our personal past is called reminiscence, an activity engaged in
by adults of all ages. This questionnaire concerns the why, or func
-
tions, of reminiscence ...”TheRFShaseight subscales, including
boredom reduction, death preparation, identity, problem solving,
conversation, intimacy maintenance (with those who have passed
on), bitterness revival, and teach/inform others. The stem statement
for each item is “When I reminisce it is to . . .” Participants rate how
often they reminisce for each reason using a 6–point Likert–type
scale that ranges from never (1) to very frequently (6).
RESULTS
The results are presented in four parts. First, the results of an explor-
atory factor analysis of the TALE are presented. In the next section
the factors are interpreted, followed by a reporting of reliability and
descriptive information on the subscales. Finally, analyses concern-
ing convergent validity with the RFS are presented.
EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE TALE
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted with the 28–item
TALE questionnaire to determine whether the three theoretical func
-
tions of AM would emerge. We chose to use EFA for a variety of rea
-
sons. First, the theoretical claim that there are directive, self, and
social functions ofAM is widespread inthe AM literature, but is a rel
-
atively new assertion (see Bluck & Alea, 2002; Cohen, 1998; Pillemer,
1992) that is often implicit, not explicit, and that has been tested in
very few empirical studies. Thus, without either a well–articulated
theoretical model or a strong empirical foundation, a confirmatory
factor analysis seemed inappropriate at this time (see Stevens, 1996,
for a discussion of this issue). Instead, the EFA is used here to provide
preliminary empirical evidence that can be used to further develop
theory. Second, an EFA was chosen instead of the commonly used
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 99
principal components analysis (PCA) because PCA originally was
developed to produce a strong first, general (principal) factor. Since
we expected three factors (not a general factor), we used EFA, which
allows the variance to be better distributed across multiple factors.
We also used EFA because PCA attempts to explain all of the vari
-
ance in a set of items (including unique and error variance), rather
than only the reliable, common, shared variance among a set of items
(Gorsuch, 1983).
Factors were extracted using a common factors model (principal
axis) with a Promax (oblique) rotation in SPSS Version 11.0. We used
an oblique rotation rather than the commonly used Varimax or
-
thogonal rotation procedure for two reasons. First, we had no reason
to believe that the factors would be orthogonal. Previous discussions
about the three theoretical functions of AM suggest that they may be
intercorrelated (Bluck, 2003; Conway, 2003). In fact, it has been ar-
gued that since most social science data involves correlated con-
structs, oblique rotation procedures are preferable (Nesselroade,
personal communication). Our inspection of the simple correlation
matrix confirmed that, indeed, the items are intercorrelated. The sec-
ond reason for using an oblique rotation procedure, particularly
Promax, is that it produces a more simple structure than orthogonal
or other oblique rotation methods, thereby increasing the ease of
interpretation (Hendrickson & White, 1964).
In the initial EFA, Kaiser’s rule (Kaiser, 1960) of extracting factors
with Eigen values > 1 suggested seven factors. Examination of the in-
flection point on the scree plot suggested that six factors should be
extracted (Cattell, 1966). These two solutions accounted for 63.12%
and 59.25% of the variance, respectively. In addition, based on sam
-
ple size criteria delineated by Cliff and Hamburger (1967), a factor
loading of .40 was used to identify meaningful factor loadings. Upon
examining the factor pattern matrix of these solutions, not all factors
were meaningful—two factors had only one or two item loadings
greater than .40. Thus, a combination of Eigen value, scree inspec
-
tion, and loading criteria suggested either a four- or five-factor
solution.
Next, because theory suggested the presence of three latent con
-
structs underlying responses to the TALE, we reran the EFA and
forced three factors. The 3–factor solution, however, accounted for
less than half the variance (44.15%). This solution was not ideal in
that eight items did not load on any factor. Moreover, while the sec
-
100 BLUCK ET AL.
ond and third factors seemed interpretable as the self and social func
-
tion of AM, the first factor was a hodgepodge of self, social, and
directive items. Thus, we forced a four–factor solution to allow the
variance being accounted for by the first factor to be better
distributed.
The four–factor solution was parsimonious. Only four items did
not load above .40 on any factor, the factor pattern matrix demon
-
strated simple structure, three of the four factors were ones that we
predicted, and the solution accounted for 50% of the variance. The
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 101
TABLE 2. Factor Pattern Matrix with Factor Loadings for the TALE Questionnaire:
4–factor EFA with Promax Rotation
Factor Loadings
Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4
Q11 integrate unexpected .68
Q6 life choice .66
Q5 learn from error .64
Q20 what caused this .58
Q4 face challenge .57
Q7 problem solving .56
Q1 learn lesson .55
Q18 reinterpret past .54
Q9 recall advice .53
Q10 know problem .50
Q19 feel better .49
Q15 life has theme .43
Q3 future goals .43
Q21 others help mood .41
Q13 self is the same .90
Q14 how self changes .64
Q16 values changed .60
Q17 understand self .49
Q22 others feel better .68
Q28 help others .62
Q25 strong friendship .59
Q26 learn other’s life .66
Q27 learn new person .49
Q24 closer relation .49
Variance Explained 30.39% 7.11% 6.65% 5.84%
Note. Values above .40 were considered to be meaningful factor loadings; all other loadings are sup
-
pressed. Items Q2, Q8, Q12, and Q23 did not not load on any factor.
factor pattern matrix with the variance explained by each of the
four–factors is reported in Table 2.
INTERPRETATION OF THE FACTORS
As can be seen in Table 2, items loading on the first factor included all
of the items derived from the literature to conceptualize direc
-
tive–type functions of AM; thus, we labeled this the Directive factor.
For example, the item with the highest loading on this factor (.68) in
-
volves using the past to understand how the unexpected fits into
one’s life. The emergence of this factor from participants’ responses
to the TALE seems to confirm that one function of AM is to use the
past in order to direct one’s present and future behavior, as well as to
solve present problems, especially under conditions of uncertainty.
However, examination of the items that load on this factor suggests
that the Directive function may be broader than originally theoreti-
cally conceived (for a discussion, see Bluck, 2003; Pillemer, 1998). For
example, two items (originally conceptualized as self and social
items) that loaded on this factor asked about using the past for emo-
tion regulation, suggesting that emotion regulation may be viewed
as a certain kind of problem solving. In addition, four items that re-
flect autobiographical reasoning (Habermas & Bluck, 2000) about
the self loaded on the Directive factor. These items reflect the sort of
meaning making (Bruner, 1990) or “integrative reminiscence” (Watt
& Wong, 1991; Wong & Watt, 1991) that may be necessary to update
one’s view of self and life so that one has a “working model” (Lock
-
hart, 1989) with which to direct behavior. The fact that these items
also load on the Directive factor suggest that meaning making also
may be viewed as a certain kind of problem solving.
The items that load on the second factor seem to reflect the use of
AM to assess Self–continuity. For example, the highest-loading item
(.90) is highly representative of continuity: it concerns using the past
to determine if one is still the same person as earlier in life. The con
-
tent of the other items that load on this factor seem to similarly tie
into the need to use the past to determine if one is still the same
person as earlier in life.
The remaining factors seem to reflect two distinct social functions
of AM and contain all the items originally written from the theoreti
-
cal literature to represent the social function. We labeled one of these
factors the Nurturing Relationships factor. For example, the item
102 BLUCK ET AL.
with the highest loading on this factor assesses the extent to which
people share similar past experiences in an effort to make someone
else feel better (.68). The other social factor was assigned the label De
-
veloping Relationships because it seems to reflect AM’s uses in de-
veloping new relationships with others. For example, the
highest-loading item on this factor assesses the extent to which
people use the past to try and learn more about other people (.66).
The factor correlation matrix is reported in Table 3. The matrix re-
veals that the Directive factor is moderately correlated with the other
factors, but that the Self–continuity, Nurturing Relationships, and
Developing Relationships factors are only correlated modestly with
each other. This lends further evidence to the broad scope of the di-
rective function of AM (Bluck, 2003; Pillemer, 1998).
RELIABILITY AND DESCRIPTIVES
Internal Consistency. Items for each of the four subscales of the
TALE that emerged from the EFA are listed in Table 4, along with
Cronbach’s alphas for internal consistency of the four subscales.
Cronbach’s alphas indicate that the four subscales of the TALE de
-
rived from the factor analyses have good or very good internal con
-
sistency, ranging from .70 for the Developing Relationships subscale,
which has only three items, to .88 for the Directive subscale, which
has 14 items. If only the four items that load highest on the Directive
factor were examined to make it comparable in length to the other
subscales, it would have a reliability of .73. Thus, the four subscales
that resulted from the four–factor EFA appear to be reliable.
Descriptives. Although the EFA does not concern mean level analy
-
ses, we present such analyses here to provide a descriptive under
-
standing of the TALE: If a good factor structure emerged, but none of
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 103
TABLE 3. Factor Correlation Matrix
Factor
Factor 1234
1. Directive 1.00
2. Self–continuity .53 1.00
3. Nurturing Relationships .46 .28 1.00
4. Developing Relationships .36 .26 .12 1.00
Note. Significance levels are not provided for factor intercorrelations.
104 BLUCK ET AL.
TABLE 4. Descriptive Information for the Four TALE Factor Items and Subscales
Item MSD
Factor 1: Directive Function/Alpha = .88
Q11 When something unexpected happens to me and I want to fit it
into my view of my life. 3.45 1.18
Q6 When I need to make a life choice and I am uncertain which path to
take. 4.14 1.30
Q5 When I want to learn from my past mistakes. 4.10 1.14
Q20 When something happens to me and I want to look back to see
what caused it. 4.34 1.15
Q4 When I am facing a challenge and I want to give myself confidence. 3.96 1.26
Q7 When I am searching for a solution to a problem. 3.60 1.11
Q1 When I feel that if I think about something bad that happened I can
learn some lesson from it. 3.84 1.32
Q18 When I want to re–interpret old events in the light of things that
have happened since. 4.14 1.17
Q9 In order to try to remember advice someone gave me because I
don’t know what to do. 3.76 1.27
Q10 When I want to better understand my current problems. 3.96 1.22
Q19 When I feel down and I want to make myself feel better. 3.59 1.32
Q15 When I want to see if my life has an overall theme. 3.32 1.63
Q3 When I think about my future goals. 4.04 1.19
Q21 When I want to make myself feel better by talking to others who
have had similar past experiences. 3.93 1.44
Total 3.86 .79
Factor 2: Self–continuity/Alpha = .80
Q13 When I am concerned about whether I am still the same type of
person that I was earlier. 3.98 1.39
Q14 When I want to understand how I have changed from who I was
before. 4.12 1.27
Q16 When I am concerned about whether my beliefs or values have
changed over time. 3.92 1.20
Q17 When I want to understand who I am now. 4.16 1.34
Total 4.01 1.03
Factor 3: Nurturing Relationships/Alpha = .76
Q22 When I want to make someone else feel better by talking to them
about my similar past experiences. 4.54 1.15
Q28 When I want to help someone by telling them about my own past
experiences. 4.64 1.00
Q25 When I want to strengthen a friendship by sharing old memories
with friends. 4.89 1.00
Total 4.70 .85
Factor 4: Developing Relationships/Alpha = .70
Q26 When I hope to also learn more about that other person’s life. 3.25 1.38
Q27 When I hope to also find out what that other person is like. 3.40 1.47
Q24 When I want to develop a closer relationship with someone. 4.16 1.29
Total 3.62 1.08
Note. 1to6scale:1 = Never, 2= Rarely, 3= Seldom, 4= Occasionally, 5= Often, and 6= Very Frequently.
For comparative purposes, items appear in the same order as in Table 2.
the items were ones that individuals endorsed as ways that they use
AM, we would have a clean but not very useful scale. The means and
standard deviations for each item and subscale are reported in Table
4. Inspection suggests that the items show adequate variability. In
addition, the most highly endorsed items (on average) provide con
-
ceptual confirmation of the factor interpretation presented above.
These include: using AM to see what caused something bad to hap
-
pen (Directive function), using AM to understand who one is now
(Self–continuity function), using AM to strengthen friendships (Nur
-
turing Relationships function), and using AM to develop closer rela
-
tionships with others (Developing Relationships function).
1
We also examined the subscale means and describe them here us
-
ing the scale level labels used by the participants. The Nurturing Re
-
lationships subscale ranked highest (M = 4.70; SD = .85) suggesting
that this function is used “often.” The means for the Self–continuity
subscale and the Directive subscale both suggest that participants
“occasionally” report using AM for these reasons. Participants re-
port using AM for Developing Relationships least often, that is,
“seldom” to “occasionally.”
VALIDATION OF THE FOUR TALE FACTORS
In this section, we examine the convergent validity of the four–factor
solution by relating the subscales constructed from the results of the
factor analysis to overall frequencies of thinking and talking about
the past, and, more importantly, to the subscales of an established
measure, the RFS (Webster, 1993, 1997).
Preliminary Convergent Validity. To begin validation of our inter
-
pretation of the four TALE factors, we correlated responses on each
of the four subscales derived from the TALE with the overall fre
-
quency of thinking about and talking about one’s past. Correlations
are presented in Table 5. Only correlations with alpha levels less than
.008 (alpha determined by using Bonferroni correction) and effect
sizes of at least .40 (representing 16% of the variance) are interpreted.
As expected, the Self–Continuity subscale correlates with thinking
about life and the Nurturing Relationships subscale correlates with
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 105
1. Means for the four items that did not load on any of the factors (Q2, Q8, Q12, and Q23)
ranged from 3.09 (seldom) to 4.25 (occasionally).
talking about life. The Directive subscale and Developing Relation
-
ships subscale showed modest correlations with both thinking and
talking about life. Thus, the use of each of the functions is somewhat
correlated with one’s overall tendency to think or talk about the past.
Beyond that, however, the results also offer preliminary validation
for the relative public (talking) and private (thinking) relevance of
the Nurturing Relationships and Self–continuity factors,
respectively.
Convergent Validity of the TALE with the RFS. Simple correlations
between the four subscales of the TALE and the subscales of the RFS
are reported in Table 6. Only those correlations with alpha levels <
.004 (Bonferroni correction) and effect sizes of at least .50 are
interpreted.
The Directive subscale correlates with two RFS subscales. The
highest correlation is between the TALE Directive subscale and the
RFS Problem Solving subscale (.79). This high correlation was ex
-
pected and confirms the theoretical notion of a directive function
that includes present problem solving (but is notcompletely duplica
-
tive of it). There also is a sizeable correlation between the TALE Di
-
rective subscale and the RFS Identity subscale (.63), which is not
surprising. Items that assess the extent to which individuals engage
in meaning making, or making sense of one’s self and life, seem to fit
with the meaning of the RFS Identity subscale. Webster (1995) also
found overlap between the directive (RFS Problem Solving) and self
(RFS Identity) functions of remembering the past while developing
the RFS.
The Self–continuity subscale correlates highly with the theoreti
-
cally similar RFS Identity subscale (.60), which suggests convergent
validity for the TALE Self–continuity factor. Although not quite at
106 BLUCK ET AL.
TABLE 5. Correlations Between the TALE Subscales and Overall Thinking and Talking
About Life
TALE Subscales
Directive
Self
Continuity
Nurturing
Relationships
Developing
Relationships
Overall frequency of
Thinking about life .35** .44** .16 .25*
Talking about life .22* .21* .42** .24*
Note. Only correlations of at least .40 are interpreted for validation purposes. *p < .008; **p < .001.
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 107
the .50 cut–off, the Self–continuity subscale also correlates relatively
highly with the RFS Problem Solving subscale, which again indicates
the overlap between these two uses of AM.
The Nurturing Relationships subscale correlates with the RFS
subscale that represents the theoretical social function of AM (Bluck
& Alea, 2002), RFS Conversation (.51), clearly falling in the domain of
social functions.
The Developing Relationships subscale of the TALE is correlated
with one RFS subscale. Unexpectedly, this correlation is with the
RFS Problem Solving subscale rather than with the social func
-
tion–oriented RFS subscales. It may be that developing relation
-
ships (e.g., getting to know other people) is seen as a sort of social
problem solving (e.g., deciding what to share in order to get to
know someone). This relation warrants further investigation. Note
that it is not surprising that the Nurturing Relationships and Devel
-
oping Relationships subscales of the TALE are not highly corre
-
lated with the RFS Intimacy Maintenance subscale. The Intimacy
subscale of the RFS is largely about reminiscing to maintain rela
-
tionships with people who have passed away, while the TALE
subscales are about nurturing and developing current relation
-
ships. In sum, three of the four theoretically derived TALE factors
converge largely as expected with the corresponding empirically
derived RFS subscales.
TABLE 6. Convergent Validity: Correlations Between the TALE and the RFS Subscales
TALE Subscales
RFS Subscales Directive
Self
Continuity
Nurturing
Relationships
Developing
Relationships
Problem Solving .79** .49** .36** .45**
Identity .63** .60** .31** .39**
Conversation .31** .11 .51** .34**
Intimacy Maintenance .42* .24* .35** .21
Teach/Inform .46** .26* .43** .33**
Boredom Reduction .25* .14 .07 .19
Bitterness Revival .28** .16 .15 .24*
Death Preparation .37** .30** .18 .35**
Note. Only correlations of at least .50 are interpreted for validation purposes. *p < .004; **p < .001.
DISCUSSION
Three theoretical functions of AM, a directive, self, and social func
-
tion, have been mentioned repeatedly in the literature. The aim of the
current study was to examine whether those three broad functions
could be reproduced empirically. As a preliminary step in that direc
-
tion, we obtained self–reports from a reasonably large group of par
-
ticipants using the newly developed TALE questionnaire, which
measures the frequency with which individuals use AM for a variety
of different reasons (reflective of directive, self, and social functions).
The results lend some support to the existence of the three theoretical
functions, but also offer room for refinement in our thinking about
the breadth and specificity of the functions of AM. The findings are
discussed in greater detail below.
A TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS?
The results of our factor analysis of the TALE suggest that: (1) the Di-
rective function appears broader than originally conceptualized, (2)
the Self function is narrower than originally conceptualized and
clearly focused on self–continuity, and (3) the Social function is rep-
resented in two separate subscales. Our TALE of three functions has
become, empirically, a tale of four.
The Directive Function. The emergence of a Directive factor con-
firms that one function of AM is to use the past in order to solve prob-
lems and to direct one’s present and future behavior. The Directive
factor included the items written to represent how that function has
been discussed in the theoretical literature, but also included addi
-
tional items. That is, these data suggest that the directive function of
AM may be broader than originally conceived. This result fits with
the thinking of Pillemer (1998, 2003). He has discussed the guiding
power of the specific episode, suggesting that individual personal
memory episodes can play strong directive roles in people’s lives in a
variety of different ways (e.g., as anchors for personal values, as orig
-
inating events for chosen life directions, as turning points that redi
-
rect one’s life path). Thus, given Pillemer’s reasoning, the Directive
subscale we identified not only encompassed specific problem solv
-
ing and making future goals and plans but also drew in items that
represent meaning making about one’s life trajectory. That is, the Di
-
rective subscale also included itemsthat concern updating or reinter
-
preting previous events in the light of new information and recalling
108 BLUCK ET AL.
events in order to understand what caused them. Such items reflect
the need for the individual to have a reasonable current working
model of how and why events occur and what they mean. That is,
people may be able to use AM most effectively to direct present and
future behavior if they periodically update and refine the meanings
and causes for past events. This is consistent with Baddeley’s (1987)
reasoning. He argued that the directive function of AM allows us to
ask new questions of old information in order to solve problems in
the present and to predict future events. Wehad expected that theDi
-
rective function that would emerge in the present study would
largely concern the present problem–solving and future prediction
aspects. The results suggest that the Directive function also involves
making sense of the past so as to have the best “old information”
available to use in directing one’s present and future.
Convergent validity and descriptive information provide further
interpretative value. This Directive subscale of the TALE dovetails
nicely with the empirically derived RFS Problem Solving and RFS
Identity subscales. In early work, Webster (1995) found that Identity
and Problem Solving were one factor. Only in a later version of the
RFS (Webster, 1997) were these divided in two. The overlap of Iden-
tity and Problem Solving is clear in their joint relation to the Directive
factor found here. This only reinforces the notion presented above,
that the Directive function does not simply include problem solving
or making goals and plans. It seems also to include the use of auto-
biographical reasoning (Habermas & Bluck, 2000) in order to update
current views of one’s biographical self. Finally, the descriptive data
suggest that individuals endorsed using the Directive function “sel
-
dom” to “occasionally,” on average. Thus, people are not constantly
drawing on the past to guide the present and future, but they do use
it to serve that function when needed. Alternatively, the Directive
function is used more than occasionally, but this process (particu
-
larly the autobiographical reasoning aspect) goes on rather
automatically and is thereby not well–represented in self-reports.
The Self Function. The Self factor that emerged from our analyses
was a rather circumscribed one. It did not involve affect regulation,
or more general meaning making, as has been suggested in the litera
-
ture—instead, it focused squarely on self–continuity. In some ways
this is unsurprising. Self–continuity is probably the most commonly
referred to self function in the theoretical literature (e.g., Brewer,
1986; Conway, 1996; Fivush, 1998; Neisser, 1988). The items repre
-
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 109
senting this function all concerned who I am now, if and how I have
changed, and how I have stayed the same over time. Together, these
point clearly at a self function of AM that allows individuals to have
and maintain a biographical identity (e.g., McAdams, 2001) and to be
able to maintain a coherent self–concept across an entire lifespan
(Cohen, 1998), even in the face of developmental change and life
events.
Convergent validity with the RFS showed significant overlap, but
not duplication, of the RFS Identity subscale. Thus, it appears that
whether individuals are asked to consider why they reminisce about
individual episodes (as they are in the RFS) or they are asked to con
-
sider why they think back over and try to integrate past life periods
with their present life, self–continuity and identity maintenance
emerge as central uses of AM. In addition to convergence with the
RFS, the Self function was related more strongly to global ratings of
thinking about one’s past than to talking about it. Of course, the func-
tions of AM may be served through privately remembering and con-
sidering past events, or through sharing them with others, or both.
Moreover, it appears that the endorsement of the Self function as im-
portant, at least as measured bythe TALE, occurs in conjunction with
a person’s overall tendency to think about his or her past. This pri-
vate, evaluative recall and consideration of one’s past has been re-
ferred to as “life reflection” that may potentially lead to self-insight
and, in some cases, self-growth (Staudinger, 2001).
The Social Function. What we had conceived of as a unitary Social
function of AM seems actually to be best reflected as two social func
-
tions: Developing Relationships and Nurturing Relationships.
Though this finding suggests four empirical functions, the concep
-
tual closeness of these two social functions makes us cautious when
interpreting these findings. Each of these factors also had the mini
-
mum number of items allowable (i.e., three) to be considered a factor
(Cliff & Hamburger, 1967). The two factors may have formed be
-
cause the items that load on each of the factors reflect different
phases in relationships. Thus, we have learned from these analyses
that the Social function may have two main manifestations: learning
about another’s life in order to form a new relationship and main
-
taining warmth (e.g., empathy) and social bonding in existing rela
-
tionships. Future research could examine how individual variables,
such as gender, personality, and age, might dictate the extent to
which initiating versus maintaining relationships are important so
-
110 BLUCK ET AL.
cial functions of AM. For example, theories of socio–emotional pro
-
cesses across the lifespan suggest that initiating relationships is
particularly important in young adulthood, but that selectively
maintaining close social bonds is more the norm in later life
(Carstensen, 1993). Our reliance on a younger adult sample in this
study may have overrepresented the distinct importance of forging
new relationships.
These two social factors showed differing relations with the rele
-
vant RFS subscales. Developing Relationships did not show the
same clear relation to expected social indicators as did Nurturing Re
-
lationships. Nurturing Relationships clearly was related to the
RFS–Conversation subscale and also to an overall tendency to talk
about one’s past with other people. Nurturing Relationships also
was the most highly endorsed subscale. On average, people reported
using AM to nurture relationships “occasionally” to “often.” Thus it
appears that the most central social function of AM is social bonding
in existing relationships. How and how often individuals use AM to
initiate or develop new relationships needs to be followed up in fu-
ture work to understand if it is indeed a separate, and well–utilized,
function of AM.
LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT STUDY
The current study examines three broad functions of AM that have,
to this point, received largely theoretical attention. Our method was
to have individuals simply report on their uses of AM to serve a vari
-
ety of ends. The accuracy and validity of such reports requires that
people must be aware of, and insightful about, how they use AM. Fu
-
ture research needs to examine more fully the extent to which people
are able to reflect in this manner. Moreover, there may be other func
-
tions of AM of which individuals are not aware, and there may be in
-
dividual differences in people’s awareness of the extent to which
memory serves important functions in their everyday life. Thus, we
believe that our data isreasonable forwhat it is, but it clearly can only
assess the functions of AM that individuals know or can recognize
that they use. Other methods that assess function less directly could
add more pieces to this developing picture.
One possible critique of these findings is that the overall factor so
-
lution only accounted for 50% of the variance. However, this was our
first attempt to assess the theoretical AM function constructs. Given
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 111
that this was an initial attempt, it is gratifying that the results of the
factor analysis showed some success in mapping the items that we
generated from the literature, onto the broad theoretical constructs.
Recall that these items were not designed to cohere nicely and tap
three functions of AM. Instead, we used the approach of gathering
ideas for items wherever we could find mention of proposed func
-
tions in the theoretical literature. Given that the items were derived
in this manner, the variance explained is reasonable. In future scale
development, subscales can be “built on” to improve their
measurement qualities.
Another issue with the current study is that we set out to see
whether the three broad functions cited in the literature could be ver
-
ified empirically. However, this does not preclude the possibility
that there are functions of AM beyond the three that drove this inves
-
tigation (Bluck, 2003). For example, recent studies of how emotion
regulation occurs during memory sharing suggest that emotion reg-
ulation may be a separate function of AM (Pasupathi, 2003). It also is
unclear whether self–continuity is the only important self function.
A series of studies have shown that self–enhancement (e.g., Wilson &
Ross, 2003) may also be a function of AM (though this still falls
within the broad category of self functions). Thus, we do not claim to
have an exhaustive list of functions represented here. As the litera-
ture expands it may be that other functions of AM beside the basic
directive, self, and social come to light.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Research on the functions of AM can take many forms (see Bluck &
Alea, 2002). As mentioned above, using methods that do not rely on
self–reports is crucial (for an example, see Alea & Bluck, 2003).
Within the realm of self–report, however, one direction we are pur
-
suing is to use the findings from the current data to revise and update
the TALE and to administer it to a larger, and age diverse, sample.
Based on the EFA obtained in the current study, and with the larger
sample size, confirmatory factor analyses will be conducted to verify
the existence of the factors reported here. In addition, collecting the
TALE from both older and younger adults will allow us to examine
the age invariance of the factor structure across these two groups.
One aim in further developing the TALE in this manner is to produce
112 BLUCK ET AL.
a reliable tool for measuring the self–reported functions of AM
across the adult lifespan.
More generally, future research is needed to address the many
questions left about AM, as it operates at the interface of cognition
and social process. In line with the questions raised by Skowronski
and Walker (2004), future studies need to address the relative impor
-
tance of the social and non–social functions of memory, the ways in
which social processes might both help and hinder the functions that
memory serves, and how the cognitive and phenomenological char
-
acteristics of memories affect their presentation in social contexts.
Pasupathi (2001) has discussed the interplay of social and memory
processes, pointing out that how we talk about and retell memories,
and who we have as listeners, may affect how memories are con
-
structed, reconstructed and recalled over time. Of course, this ulti
-
mately would affect the functions that those memories serve.
Our own theoretical work (Alea, & Bluck, 2003) also addresses AM
as a cognition occurring insocial context. In an effortto stimulate and
guide empirical work, particularly within a functional framework,
we developed a conceptual model of the social functions of autobio-
graphical memory across the lifespan. The model delineates the pro-
cesses and variables involved when AMs are shared to serve social
functions. Components of the model include: lifespan contextual in-
fluences, the qualitative and cognitive characteristics of memory
(emotionality and level of detail recalled), the speaker’s characteris-
tics (age, gender, and personality), the familiarity and similarity of
the listener to the speaker, the level of responsiveness during the
memory-sharing process, and the nature of the social relationship in
which the memory-sharing occurs (valence and length of the rela
-
tionship). We argue that each of these components influences both
the type of social function served (e.g., intimacy, empathy) and the
extent to which social functions are adaptively served. In short, cur
-
rent models and theoretical work in the recent literature (Alea &
Bluck, 2003; Pasupathi, 2001; Skowronski & Walker, 2004) offer a rich
array of possibilities for empirically examining the functions of AM
in social context.
CONCLUSION
Exploring AM from a functional perspective is necessary if we are to
embrace the ecological roots from which this field has sprung. In the
current work, we have complemented theory by presenting an em
-
TALE OF THREE FUNCTIONS 113
pirical tale about the functions of autobiographical memory. Though
it is a modest attempt, the data presented here provide preliminary
support for directive, self, and social functions that have been talked
about in the literature since at least the 1970s, but have not often been
put to empirical test.
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