How Collective Memories Emerge: A Cognitive Psychological Perspective

The opportunities for people to connect with others and build collective narratives of the past have increased over time, and these opportunities have catapulted to a global level with the advent of the internet and social media. As the theme of this book asks, How is it then that in this era of globalization, there is a rise of populism and nationalism? This chapter approaches this question from a cognitive psychological perspective to explore the nature of group-level memory representation. A key antecedent process called collaborative remembering is explored to understand how memories converge in groups and how shared memory representations can come to vary across different groups and contexts. This chapter identifies specific cognitive mechanisms that are activated during collaborative remembering and that lead to memory reconstruction, ultimately giving rise to collective memories. It discusses four attributes of collective memory formation: who talks to whom, who knows what, aligned memories structures, and emotional valence of information. It is concluded that by linking aligned memory structures to the idea of narrative forms as cultural tools, aligned memory structures may serve as laboratory analogs to understand the building blocks of collective memory.