Maternal reminiscing and child autobiographical memory elaboration: A meta-analytic review.

Abstract

Significant research has investigated the relationship between mother–child reminiscing and children’s autobiographical memory development. It has been suggested that mothers who adopt a high elaborative reminiscing style tend to have children who provide greater memory elaboration during joint reminiscing, yet the empirical findings are somewhat mixed. To address this issue, a systematic review and meta-analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between maternal elaborative reminiscing and child autobiographical memory elaboration. Thirty-four cross-sectional and longitudinal studies from peer-reviewed journals and published dissertations were included in the review. Of those, 31 studies had available data for meta-analytic analyses of the maternal reminiscing variables identified in the review. Findings from this study provided strong evidence indicating that high elaborative maternal reminiscing was associated with children’s ability to provide greater detailed personal memory, both concurrently and longitudinally. Among maternal elaborative reminiscing elements identified, mothers’ open-ended elaboration and positive evaluation were found to be most related to child memory elaboration. More research is needed to identify the effects of sociocultural contexts on the relationship between maternal elaborative reminiscing and child memory elaboration.

Maternal Reminiscing and Autobiographical Memory Features of Mother–Child Dyads in a Cross‐Cultural Context

“…In particular, maternal reminiscing uniquely predicted a high proportion of variance, even after controlling for other factors. Thus, our findings further support a pan‐cultural association between maternal reminiscing styles and child memory elaboration (Nelson & Fivush, 2004; Schröder et al, 2012; Wang, 2007; Wu & Jobson, 2019). Nonetheless, only child age and language emerged as unique predictors of child memory specificity.…”

“…Consistent with previous research comparing dyads (of similarly well-educated urban background) from autonomy-oriented and relatednessoriented cultural contexts (e.g., Schr€ oder et al, 2012;Wang, 2007), our findings indicated that Australian mothers were more elaborative than Chinese mothers during reminiscing. Specifically, Australian mothers used significantly more wh-questions and confirmations (i.e., the two critical aspects of an elaborative reminiscing style that have been identified in past research; for a review, see Wu & Jobson, 2019) than Chinese mothers. In addition, Australian mothers were rated as significantly more supportive (in recognizing, validating, and encouraging children's contribution to the conversation) than Chinese mothers in reminiscing.…”

“…For instance, researchers recently explicitly indicated that child memory specificity and memory elaboration were two distinct components of child autobiographical memory (Valentino, McDonnell, Comas, & Nuttall, 2018). Child memory elaboration often refers to children's ability to recall unique memory information about a past event and is typically assessed in shared reminiscing (Wu & Jobson, 2019). Although, child memory specificity reflects children's ability to independently generate and retrieve specific memories of personal events (i.e., memories of events happened on a particular day) and is often assessed in a series of questions using emotional cue word prompts (Valentino et al, 2014).…”

“…Maternal reminiscing style varies in two predominant ways; the way in which the mother structures and scaffolds the conversation (i.e., elaborative reminiscing style), and in the level of emotional coherence and sensitive guidance the mother shows for her child during reminiscing (i.e., supportive reminiscing style; Larkina & Bauer, 2010;Valentino et al, 2014). In particular, the positive relationship between maternal elaborative reminiscing style and child memory elaboration (i.e., the ability to provide new and unique memory information) has been well-documented, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally (for a review, see Wu & Jobson, 2019). High elaborative maternal reminiscing style is characterized by frequent use of questions and statements that add richly detailed information to the ongoing narrative and positive evaluative feedback that encourages child participation (Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006).…”

“…Additionally, while preschool-aged children tend to adopt their mothers' reminiscing style when recalling past experiences (Wu & Jobson, 2019), it remains unknown whether children's memory specificity also mirrors maternal memory specificity. It is widely accepted that the voluntary retrieval of specific event details is a cognitive effortful action that requires deliberate search and reconstruction of memory information (Aizpurua & Koutstaal, 2015).…”