The transmission and stability of cultural life scripts: a cross-cultural study
Cultural life scripts are shared knowledge about the timing of important life events. In the present study, we examined whether cultural life scripts are transmitted through traditions and whether there are additional ways through which they can be attained by asking Australian and
Malaysian participants which information sources they had used to generate the life script of their culture. Participants hardly reported that they had used cultural and religious traditions. They more often reported that they had used their own experiences and experiences of relatives and
friends. They also reported the use of comments of relatives and friends and the use of newspapers, books, movies and television programmes. Furthermore, we examined the stability of life scripts and similarities and differences across cultures. We found that life scripts are stable cognitive
structures and that there are, besides cross-cultural differences in the content, small cross-cultural differences in the valence and distribution of life script events, with the Australian life script containing more positive events and more events expected to occur before the age of 16.
Keywords: Autobiographical memory; cultural life script; identity; social learning theory; vicarious memories
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: School of Psychology, University of Nottingham – Malaysia Campus, Semenyih, Malaysia 2: Department of Psychology, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University – Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
Publication date: 02 January 2018
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