Collective Memory, Knowledge and Attitudes

SES-0853381霍华德·舒曼密歇根大学，安·阿博尔集体记忆--这里定义为关于过去的共同记忆和知识--位于个人历史和国家历史的交叉点上。在这项研究中，一项全国性调查将在2009年重复1985年和2000-2001年提出的开放式问题，以确定美国人记忆中过去75年中特别重要的事件和变化。此外，对这项研究的支持将使调查人员也能够利用不同的和异常庞大的数据集(2000-2001年的2750例)来进一步对受访者进行解释性分析？将特定事件命名为重要事件的原因，追求的假设是，即使不同的队列对表面上相同的事件有着共同的记忆，对事件含义的调查的答案可能会揭示出完全不同的视角和解释。这两种方法都建立在早期工作的基础上，这些工作证明了青少年和成人早期关键年龄段的重要性。为国家和世界事件创造持久的记忆。对于9/11/01袭击，关键年份假设尤其重要：与事后发现的以往队列效应不同，2001年的数据导致对创伤性9/11袭击的具体曲线效应做出了明确的预测，这一预测应在2009年可见。新增加的两个项目将考虑“内隐记忆”(例如，根据每个队列的早期经验参考的价格水平)和错误记忆的复杂性(例如，颠倒过去的联想，就像乔·麦卡锡被回忆为“共产主义参议员”那样)。先前的研究还指出，受访者对被调查者认为重要的事件自发产生的记忆与通过要求受访者描述与特定事件有关的术语而产生的知识形式的记忆之间存在异同。这项新的研究将把这两类证据联系起来，此前这两类证据只在不同的背景下进行了研究。相关的态度也将被调查，对集体记忆和态度之间的因果方向可能得出可信的结论。研究人员还计划对集体记忆的其他实证研究进行荟萃分析，确定主要的趋势、方法和结论，并将它们与基于调查的跨个体样本共享记忆的研究联系起来。通过记录和反思方法的多样性，调查人员寻求的不是证明一种证据来源比另一种来源更好，而是为利用不同来源的目标作出贡献，以便得出没有人可能单独支持的结论。此外，已经进行的跨国复制的使用将增加将不同层次的分析联系起来的努力。更广泛的影响新数据将进一步理解产生和维持集体记忆(例如，9/11/01袭击)和集体遗忘(例如，曾经熟悉的冷战？)的社会、文化和心理机制。这项研究不仅将通过抽样调查来发展过去的研究，而且还将表明，研究集体记忆的不同方法可以被视为互补而不是竞争。研究结果将发表在一些跨学科的社会科学期刊上，也希望能出版成一本可广泛阅读的书。此外，原始数据将以其他人广泛可用的形式和位置存档，以供进一步分析，并用于与研究有关的教学。

SES- 0853381Howard SchumanUniversity of Michigan, Ann ArborCollective memory--defined here as shared memories and knowledge about the past--lies at the intersection of personal and national history. For this research, a national survey will replicate in 2009 open-ended questions asked in 1985 and 2000-2001 in order to identify events and changes from the past 75 years that Americans recall as especially important. In addition, support for the research will allow the investigators to draw also on a different and unusually large data set (2,750 cases in 2000-2001) to develop further an interpretive analysis of respondents? reasons for naming particular events as important, pursuing the hypothesis that even when different cohorts share memories of what is ostensibly the same event, answers to an inquiry into the meaning of the event can reveal quite different perspectives and interpretations. Both approaches build on earlier work, which demonstrated the significance of the adolescent and early adult ?critical years? for creating lasting memories of national and world events. The critical years hypothesis is particularly important to test with regard to the 9/11/01 attack: unlike past cohort effects discovered after the fact, data in 2001 led to a clear prediction of a specific curvilinear effect for the traumatic 9/11 attack, which should be visible in 2009. Two new additions will consider "implicit memories" (e.g., price levels referenced on the basis of each cohort's early experience) and the complexity of misremembering (e.g., inversion of past associations, as with Joe McCarthy recalled as a "Communist Senator"). The prior research also pointed to similarities and differences between spontaneously generated memories of events deemed important by respondents and memories in the form of knowledge elicited by asking respondents for accounts of terms related to specific events. The new research will connect these two types of evidence, previously studied only in separate contexts. Associated attitudes will be investigated as well, with the possibility of plausible conclusions about causal direction between collective memories and attitudes. The investigators plan also to conduct a meta-analysis of other empirical studies of collective memory, identifying major currents, methods, and conclusions, and relating them to survey-based research on shared memories across samples of individuals. By documenting and reflecting on the diversity of approaches, the investigators seek not to demonstrate that one source of evidence is better than another, but to contribute to the goal of using different sources in order to reach conclusions that none might support alone. In addition, use of cross-national replications, already carried out, will add to this attempt to link different levels of analysis. Broader ImpactThe new data will further understanding of the social, cultural, and psychological mechanisms that produce and sustain both collective memory (e.g., of the 9/11/01 attack) and collective forgetting (e.g., of the once familiar ?Cold War?). The research will be not only develop past research using sample surveys, but also show that different approaches to studying collective memory can be seen as complementary rather than competing. The results are intended for publication in social science journals that have some cross-disciplinary reach, and it is hoped in a broadly accessible book as well. In addition, the original data will be archived in a form and location widely available to others for further analysis, as well as for use in research-related teaching.