Being American, being Asian: the bicultural self and autobiographical memory in Asian Americans

Studies of autobiographical memory have shown that the degree to which individuals focus on themselves vs. social relations in their memories varies markedly across cultures. Do the differences result from differing cultural self-views (i.e., an autonomous vs. a relational sense of self), as often suggested in the literature? Experimental evidence is required to answer this question. In the present study, Asian American participants (N=118) were primed to focus on their American or Asian self prior to recalling important autobiographical events, and participants in a control group described things in nature prior to the memory recall. Those whose American self was activated recalled more self-focused and less socially oriented memories than those whose Asian self was made salient, with the control group falling in between. The findings shed light on the mechanism underlying cultural influences on autobiographical remembering. They further highlight the dynamic nature of the memory-self interplay in cultural contexts.