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A distant mirror: Memories of parents and friends across childhood and adolescence
Author(s) -
Peterson Carole.,
Bonechi Alice.,
Smorti Andrea.,
Tani Franca.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1348/000712609x478835
Subject(s) - psychology , friendship , developmental psychology , childhood amnesia , recall , fluency , late childhood , childhood memory , affect (linguistics) , episodic memory , cognition , cognitive psychology , social psychology , communication , mathematics education , neuroscience
Memories that were easily accessible (i.e., quickly retrieved in a memory‐fluency task) of Italian university students were assessed. They were from four periods of life: preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school/university. Half of the participants were instructed to recall only memories involving parents, and the other half memories involving friends. Across age at the time of remembered events, only memories of friends increased in frequency. For parental memories (but not friend memories), the proportion with negative affect increased over age, especially for males. There were also differences related to whether memories were episodic or generic. It was concluded that memories of different periods of childhood and adolescence can serve as a reflective mirror for developmental changes in parent–child and friendship relationships.