Doctoral Dissertation Research: On the Formation and Transformation of Collective Memory in Family Conversations

为什么家庭、同事甚至国家都以同样的方式来记住过去？ 最初不一致的记忆是如何汇聚到对过去的单一再现上的？ 日常对话是否会改变人们的记忆，从而产生集体记忆？ 为什么有些记忆会在一个群体中传播，而另一些记忆则保持在局部或消失？ 在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，在威廉·赫斯特博士的监督下，亚历克斯·丘克解决了集体记忆研究中的这些关键问题，专注于家庭中集体记忆的形成。在很大程度上，研究人员未能研究社会结构对记忆的影响，专注于作为记忆处理基础的普遍心理机制。 Cuc先生创新性地探索了这些众所周知的心理机制和较少理解的对话动态之间的相互作用，因为他阐明了集体记忆通过对话形成的条件。 该项目的学术价值主要来自于Cuc先生对这种相互作用的新见解以及他为绘制这种相互作用而开发的严格方法。该项目的更广泛影响包括更好地理解集体记忆的形成，不仅仅是家庭，而是包括国家在内的任何群体。 这种理解为未来探索集体记忆支持群体认同的方式奠定了基础，无论是家庭认同还是国家认同。

ABSTRACTWilliam Hirts/Alexandru Cuc - 0236764Why do families, colleagues, and even nations come to remember the past in the same way? How do initially discrepant memories come to converge on a single rendering of the past? Will everyday conversations change people's memories so that a collective memory emerges? And why do some memories spread across a group, while others remain localized or disappear? With NSF support, under the supervision of Dr. William Hirst, Alex Cuc addresses these critical issues for the study of collective memory, focusing on the formation of collective memories in families.To a large extent, researchers have failed to examine the effect of social structure on memory, concentrating on universal mental mechanisms that serve as the foundation for mnemonic processing. Mr. Cuc innovatively explores the interaction between these well-understood mental mechanisms and the less understood dynamics of conversation as he articulates the conditions under which collective memories are formed through conversation. The intellectual merits of the project stem primarily from the fresh insights Mr. Cuc offers about this interaction and the rigorous methodology he develops to chart this interaction.Broader impacts of the project include a better understanding of the formation of collective memories, not just of families, but of any group, including nations. This understanding serves as a foundation for exploring in the future the way collective memories support group identity, be it family identity or national identity.