The Remembering Self: Construction and Accuracy in the Self-Narrative

Emory Symposia in Cognition

by Ulric Neisser (Editor), Robyn Fivush (Editor)

The contributors to this book bring a surprisingly wide range of intellectual disciplines to bear on the discussion of self-narrative and the self. Using the ecological/cognitive approach, The Remembering Self relates ideas from the experimental, developmental, and clinical study of memory to insights from postmodernism and literature. Although autobiographical remembering is an essential way of giving meaning to our lives, the memories we construct are never fully consistent and often simply wrong. In the first chapter, the authors consider the so-called false memory syndrome in this context; other contributors discuss the effects of amnesia, the development of remembering in childhood, the social construction of memory and its alleged self- servingness, and the contrast between literary and psychological models of the self.

Genres: Psychology

Hardcover

First published October 28, 1994

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neisser's "Five kinds of self‐knowledge" (1988) is perhaps the most insightful theoretical work about the self that I have ever read (if you haven't read it and are interested in this subject, please go for it!). It was such an influential paper in philosophy and psychology that Neisser published two anthologies about two of these five kinds of self-knowledge. The first is about the perceiving/ecological self, and the second is this anthology, about the remembering self. The remembering self is the most conceptually or cognitively sophisticated self out of the five that Neisser identifies. It is temporally extended and based in memory and narrative. We can understand it as either the sense of self we have when we remember episodic memories; or, as the sense of self we have that is based in, or constructed from, those memories.

All biological systems have a basic kind of memory, in the sense that past events influence the present functioning of those systems. For non-human organisms, there is no negotiation regarding how a past event was registered, and the kinds of effects that that event has on the organism today. For humans, there is much leeway for negotiation! By remembering our past, we can reflect on and reconstruct our memories. We can transform our understanding of where we've been and where we're going, which changes how the world shows up for us in the present moment.

Arguably, remembering our past is a skill that can be developed in different ways. The particular way we reconstruct a memory whenever we retrieve it is a matter of improvisation; there is a perspective structured by certain values and interests that we occupy whenever we retrieve a memory, and that perspective will shape how we reconstruct it. In turn, these products will feed into or reinforce the remembering selves that we occupy.

The extent to which we can reconstruct a memory is remarkable. It is possible to have vivid, convincing memories that have not a single grain of truth in them. The articles in this anthology were written at a historical moment where multiple personality disorder was on the lose; there was a cultural mass hysteria about Satanic cults abusing children, and there were many therapists who encouraged patients to "recover" repressed memories about being abused as such. This led to family members being accused, and to families being broken. The question of the accuracy of these memories was thus critical. This prompted much memory research at the time. Some of the articles are unified around the topic of what factors influence the ways we reconstruct memories, or how much leeway do we really have in changing a memory. Others focus on the topic of the relationship between memory and the self.

The articles vary with respect to their degrees of emphasis on theory/philosophy v. empirical studies. My favorite articles were perhaps the more theory-heavy; they include "Composing protoselves through improvisation," "Mind, text and society: self-memory in social context," and "The remembered self in amnesiacs." I will briefly describe the first of these. It with the idea that we have a plurality of remembered selves, each of which are based in specific, especially emotionally powerful experiences. The ways we remember those experiences, and thus the ways these remember selves grow up, are influenced by cultural narratives and norms. The metaphor of improvisation can be used to understand this cultivation process. A performer will draw on scales that are socially normative; likewise, we will draw on narratives that are socially normative in the recreation of our memories.

My main complaint about this anthology is that the majority of the articles were more heavy on the research-side. If they deal with any theoretical issues, those are just mentioned bluntly, and then the bulk of those articles involve presenting empirical studies and stats that are to be used to support the author's position. I would've preferred more papers that would examine the concepts and presumptions behind those stated positions. I'd recommend this anthology, nonetheless, to readers interested in these topics of memory, self, and narrative. It'd be especially interesting for readers who are more familiar with or interested in psychological research.