Functions of Parental Intergenerational Narratives Told by Young People

Merrill, Natalie; Booker, Jordan A.; Fıvush, Robyn

doi:10.1111/tops.12356

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Existing findings support views of mastery as beneficial for psychological adjustment and likely to flourish in settings that provide structure and opportunities for personal control, such as a responsive home environment (Aunola et al, 1999(Aunola et al, , 2000Benita et al, 2014). Whereas growing research points to intergenerational effects of parenting (e.g., Booker et al, 2018;Kerr & Capaldi, 2019;Merrill et al, 2019;Rothenberg, 2019), there remains room to consider the potential of mother mastery for intergenerational transmission, particularly with older adolescent and adult offspring. To address this, we used a secondary analysis of a longitudinal, nationally representative dataset from the United States.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 86%

Intergenerational transmission of mastery between mothers and older offspring: Considering direct, moderated, and mediated effects.

Booker¹,

Ell²

2022

Developmental Psychology

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Mastery involves a sense of having control over one's surroundings and an ability to accomplish meaningful goals and determine important meaningful outcomes across situations. Mastery is a dynamic, learned resource that has implications for mental health. Although mastery is known to be influenced by exposure to family members (i.e., parental socialization, parenting styles; provided opportunities for autonomy and choice) there remain few long-term considerations of intergenerational transmission of mastery within families and the enduring implications for offspring's mental health and adjustment. Using a nationally representative sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the current study addresses the longitudinal effects of mothers' early sense of mastery on adolescent and adult offspring's mastery and well-being. In considering mothers' reports between 1987 and 1992 and offspring's ongoing reports between 1994 and 2012; this study addressed questions about direct, moderated, and mediated mother effects on longitudinal offspring outcomes. Mother mastery and mother self-esteem predicted offspring's respective reports, but only mother mastery predicted offspring depressive symptoms. Effects of mother mastery, but not mother self-esteem, were moderated by offspring age. Older offspring of high mastery mothers showed the largest benefits for reported mastery. Older offspring of low mastery mothers reported the greatest concerns with depressive symptoms. Last, effects of mother mastery on offspring depressive symptoms were mediated by offspring mastery and self-esteem. We discuss the fit of these findings with existing theories and empirical work on intergenerational transmission.

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Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 86%

Intergenerational transmission of mastery between mothers and older offspring: Considering direct, moderated, and mediated effects.

Booker¹,

Ell²

2022

Developmental Psychology

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“…The findings revealed gender differences, as only adolescent girls who retold their mothers’ intergenerational narratives from their perspective were reported by their mothers as having fewer problematic behaviors in general ( Zaman and Fivush, 2011 ) and they may be more inclined to derive meaning from intergenerational narratives than boys in this particular stage of development ( Merrill and Fivush, 2016 ). When a similar study was conducted with emerging adults, higher coherence in retelling maternal intergenerational narratives was correlated with better wellbeing among both genders; however, only female emerging adults also demonstrated this association with paternal intergenerational narratives ( Merrill et al, 2019 ). These results imply that intergenerational narratives may benefit both genders in emerging adulthood with some individual differences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Knowledge of Chosen Family History and Depressive Symptoms in Sexual Minority Women

2021

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Recent work on intergenerational memory has revealed a positive association between family of origin knowledge and wellbeing in adolescents. However, little is known about the generalizability of these data, as significantly less attention has focused on autobiographical memory sharing and wellbeing in historically marginalized communities. Given the high incidence of familial rejection and abandonment within the LGBTQIA + community, close relationships with individuals outside of one’s family of origin, chosen families, often serve as an important source of social support. This study sought to examine the relationship between knowledge of a close non-family member and wellbeing among emerging adult sexual minority women (SMW) according to their gender presentation. A community sample from New York City comprised of heterosexual women (n = 50), masculine-presenting SMW (n = 50), and feminine presenting SMW (n = 50) completed measures associated with their knowledge of their family of origin, knowledge of a close non-family member, as well as self-reported measures of depression, emotion regulation, and socio-demographic questions. Family of origin knowledge was associated with lower levels of depression only among heterosexual women. However, heterosexual and SMW who knew more about their close non-family member reported lower levels of depression. Additionally, emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisals) mediated the relationship between knowing more about one’s chosen family and lower depressive symptom severity among heterosexual women, but this relationship was only significant for SMW who were at least moderately open about their sexuality. These findings extend the literature on the benefits of memory sharing to historically marginalized communities by showing that memory sources outside of one’s family of origin may be particularly important. Additionally, these data begin to shed light on potential mediating factors, such as emotion regulation and openness about one’s sexual identity, that underlie the links between memory sharing and metrics of wellbeing. Taken together, in contexts in which there may not be opportunities to learn about family history from one’s family of origin, it appears that access to stories from someone close outside of one’s family is also associated with lower levels of depression.

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“…Yet, they are important hubs of information and representations. Notably, through the sharing of family memories, parents, and grandparents convey to their (grand)children important moral and social values that are essential for the formation and maintenance of a cohesive family identity (Green 2019; Merrill et al 2019; Pratt and Fiese 2004). These values can act as filters for family members, which may lead them to question, reinterpret or reject information they receive.…”

Section: Collective Memory Studies: Across Disciplines and Across Gen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective memory: An hourglass between the collective and the individual

Cordonnier¹,

Rosoux

Gijs³

et al. 2022

Mem. Mind & Media

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Collective memories are memories shared by a group that influence their social identity. The goal of this paper is to focus on two major limitations in current studies on collective memory and show how the hourglass metaphor can overcome those limitations. The first limitation concerns the partial nature of studies devoted to the analysis of collective memory. Studies tend to focus either on the choice of the past (how memory agents mobilise the past) or the weight of the past (how the past affects the individual or the group). The second limitation relates to the temporal dimension of research conducted so far. Most studies only assess memory over a single generation, yet it can have long-term effects. In this paper, we suggest considering memory work as an hourglass, with the collective and the individual at opposite ends and the sand of memories passing from one to the other, filtered through family values and representations. The hourglass metaphor thus provides a helpful tool to explain the formation of collective memories over time and the interactions between the macro, meso, and micro levels. We approach the study of collective memory from an interdisciplinary perspective, mainly involving psychology, political science, and history. We conclude by suggesting three challenges that future studies of memory will need to address: (1) the need to combine multiple approaches; (2) the need to consider the role of generations; and (3) the need to bridge discussion across disciplines.

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Functions of Parental Intergenerational Narratives Told by Young People

Cited by 26 publications

References 45 publications

Intergenerational transmission of mastery between mothers and older offspring: Considering direct, moderated, and mediated effects.

Intergenerational transmission of mastery between mothers and older offspring: Considering direct, moderated, and mediated effects.

Knowledge of Chosen Family History and Depressive Symptoms in Sexual Minority Women

Collective memory: An hourglass between the collective and the individual

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