The Influence of High-Elaborative, Emotion-Rich Reminiscing on Children’S
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The Influence of High-elaborative, Emotion-rich Reminiscing on Children’s Development of Autobiographical Memory and Emotion Knowledge Penny Wareham Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of PhD at the School of Psychology, University of New South Wales August 2007 ABSTRACT High elaborative parent-child reminiscing plays a significant role in preschoolers’ development of autobiographical memory, and, given the emotional salience of many past events, may also contribute to the development of emotion knowledge and other socio-cognitive skills. Additionally, whilst research has traditionally focused on reminiscing style, emotional content may also be important for child outcomes. In Study 1, a naturalistic paradigm was employed to examine associations of parents’ reminiscing style and emotion references with children’s emotion knowledge. Twenty-five parent- child dyads each discussed four emotionally salient past events. It was found that high elaborative parents more often discussed emotions causes than did other parents; in turn, a high elaborative style and discussion of emotion causes were each uniquely associated with children’s emotion knowledge. In Study 2 an experimental paradigm was used to examine the impact of emotion- oriented reminiscing on 88 children’s memory for a staged, emotion-rich event. Two days after participating in the event, children reminisced with an experimenter in one of four ways. Emotion-cause, emotion-expression, and no-emotion reminiscing were all high elaborative but differed in emotion content. Minimal reminiscing was low elaborative. Children who participated in emotion-cause reminiscing and, to a lesser extent, emotion- expression reminiscing, recalled significantly more emotional and non-emotional information about the event than did children who participated in no-emotion or minimal reminiscing. Study 3 aimed to extend the findings of Studies 1 and 2 by training mothers to reminisce using a high elaborative style and emotion content. 80 dyads initially participated; 44 completed all stages. After training, mothers and children in the reminiscing condition each used a more elaborative style and discussed emotions more than did their counterparts in a powerful ‘child directed play’ control condition. These differences were sustained across six months, at which time children in the reminiscing condition also showed better emotion cause knowledge than did children in the control condition. Taken together, these findings suggest that children’s autobiographical memory and emotion knowledge may each develop via shared reminiscing interactions in the preschool years. In each case, the role of high-elaborative, emotion-rich reminiscing is highlighted. CHAPTER 1: COGNITIVE AND SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN YOUNG CHILDHOOD........................................................................................................... 1 THE ROLE OF PARENT-CHILD DISCUSSION IN CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT ............................2 The Sociocultural Theoretical Framework ........................................................................ 4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY ..........................................................7 The Definition of Autobiographical Memory..................................................................... 8 The Emergence of Autobiographical Memory: Theoretical Perspectives .................9 The Importance of Autobiographical Memory................................................................. 15 Autobiographical Memory and Autobiographical Recall................................................ 17 Parents’ Reminiscing Style............................................................................................... 18 Individual elements of a high elaborative style........................................................20 Close-ended questions: Are they elaborative? .........................................................21 The Impact of Parent Reminiscing Style on Children’s Autobiographical Memory24 Elaborative Structure, Autonomy Support, and Autobiographical Memory ...........30 The Mechanisms of the Elaborative Style................................................................32 Memorial Benefit of Elaborative Reminiscing ........................................................34 Child Influences on Reminiscing Style............................................................................. 36 Children’s Contributions to Reminiscing Style and Recall .....................................36 The Impact of Child Gender on Reminiscing Style .................................................37 Associations between Attachment and Reminiscing Style ......................................38 The Impact of Child Temperament on Reminiscing Style.......................................38 The Impact of Culture on Reminiscing Style.................................................................... 39 Parents’ Narrative Content.............................................................................................. 40 Discussion of Emotional Experiences in the Past ....................................................42 The Impact of Child Gender on Emotion Talk ....................................................44 Future Research........................................................................................................45 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTION KNOWLEDGE ....................................................................45 The Importance of Emotion Knowledge for Preschoolers............................................... 46 Findings: Parent-child Discussion of Emotions and Emotion Knowledge...................... 47 The Impact of Discussing Emotion Causes above and beyond other Emotion Talk48 Associations between Emotion Knowledge, Language, and Theory of Mind.........49 Influences on Emotion Knowledge................................................................................... 51 The Impact of Child Gender on Emotion Knowledge .............................................51 The Impact of Culture on Emotion Knowledge.......................................................52 INTEGRATING RESEARCH ON PAST EVENT DISCUSSIONS, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY, AND EMOTION KNOWLEDGE: THE PRESENT RESEARCH................................................................53 Associations between Parent-child Reminiscing and Emotion Knowledge..................... 54 The Impact of Causal and Non-causal Emotion Reminiscing on Recall ......................... 55 Facilitating Recall and Emotion Knowledge via Reminiscing Training.......................... 56 CHAPTER 2: ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN AN ELABORATIVE STYLE, EMOTION REFERENCES, AND EMOTION KNOWLEDGE ........................................................... 58 METHOD................................................................................................................................63 Participants ...................................................................................................................... 63 Measures and Procedure ................................................................................................. 63 Memory Conversations ............................................................................................64 Children’s Emotion Knowledge...............................................................................64 Children’s Language ................................................................................................65 Coding .............................................................................................................................. 66 RESULTS................................................................................................................................67 Preliminary Analyses and Sample Characteristics.......................................................... 67 Correlation Analyses of Reminiscing Style and Content, and Children’s Language and Emotion Knowledge ......................................................................................................... 69 Associations between Parents and Children’s Memory Conversation Variables ....70 Associations between Parents’ Style and Content Memory Conversation Variables ..................................................................................................................................70 DISCUSSION...........................................................................................................................72 CHAPTER 3: EMOTION ORIENTED REMINISCING AND CHILDREN’S RECALL FOR A NOVEL EVENT........................................................................................................ 78 METHOD................................................................................................................................83 Participants ...................................................................................................................... 83 Materials .......................................................................................................................... 84 Zoo Event Props.......................................................................................................84 Procedure......................................................................................................................... 85 Zoo Event .................................................................................................................85 Reminiscing Conversation .......................................................................................85