Turning Points
How we use memories to make decisions is a new area of research within developmental psychology. New studies by UNH researchers are underway.
A woman recalls a key moment in college when she was in an art history course. Her assignment was to go to the art museum and write about a sculpture. Rather than going to the museum, she wrote about it from a picture: “When I received the paper back it had no grade, but instead a note which said ‘see me.’ Upon meeting with the instructor I was informed that the piece about which I wrote was currently being restored. Since I had not followed instructions and written about a piece I had seen, I was required to write another paper. In addition to being extremely embarrassed, I learned a valuable lesson about not taking shortcuts.”
“Memory is a moving target,” says David Pillemer, the Dr. Samuel E. Paul Professor of Developmental Psychology, whose research on memory and its functions elicited the above memory. In his book, Momentous Events, Vivid Memories, Pillemer concludes that “memory is an essential component of practical intelligence.” Being able to nimbly use one’s memories when matched effectively within a social context comprises intelligent behavior. The above memory is an example of what Pillemer refers to as the directive function—because of this experience, no more short cuts!
A Career Begins
While training as a marriage and family therapist in California, Kie Kuwabara found Pillemer’s work compelling. “One of the things I found fascinating was to hear people’s memories of events in counseling and how those memories were still influencing them in the present. As an undergraduate, I had enjoyed working in a cognitive research lab at UC Davis and I knew that I wanted to combine my interests from counseling with my passion for research,” recalls Kuwabara. “So, when I was deciding on graduate programs, because of David’s research, UNH was one of my top choices.”
Now a third-year UNH graduate student in psychology, Kuwabara’s research focuses on the directive function of memory. The directive function helps us to solve problems and make decisions. Other memory functions include the self—how we use our memories to maintain a continuous sense of self; and social—how we might use memories to initiate friendships. What’s exciting about researching the directive function is that it’s possible to measure it scientifically. However, not much empirical research has been done.
“Kie is among the first to study the directive function of memory in children,” notes Pillemer about research Kuwabara conducted this past summer.
Setting up a study
To examine how children use autobiographical memories during social problem solving, Kuwabara first established a set of questions she wanted to answer: Do children use specific past episodes to aid them in solving interpersonal problems in the present? Do boys and girls differ in their social problem-solving strategies and the use of episodic memories while problem-solving?
Destination ImagiNation®, a worldwide creative problem-solving competition for children has summer camps in New Hampshire. These settings offered up an ideal group of children to participate in the study. To create problems for the children to solve, Kuwabara devised several vignettes that were read to participants whose responses were recorded for transcription.
Most parents will recognize the dilemmas in some of these vignettes. For example, Jenn and her friend each want to see a movie, but they can only see one. Or, Kevin really wants a cell phone because all of his friends have one, but his parents will not buy it for him.
Kuwabara was aided in her research by undergraduate Tanya Rouleau. The results are still being analyzed, but Kuwabara already sees evidence that memories of specific experiences play a role in children’s decision-making processes.
Other areas? Donations and health
This past year Kuwabara and Pillemer also studied how memories might affect current intentions and decisions for adults in regards to donations to a nonprofit institution. The effect was that positive memories about the institution generally resulted in increased giving. Another study that Kuwabara and Pillemer have planned concerns health-related behaviors. For example, do positive memories about exercise lead to more intensive workouts? How about negative memories of unfulfilled athletic expectations?
While it may seem obvious that positive memories would lead to more intensive workouts, consider this anecdote from Pillemer’s book: As a sophomore in high school Michael Jordan did not make the roster for the varsity basketball team. “It was embarrassing, not making the team,” recalled Jordan. “They posted the roster and it was there for a long, long time without my name on it. I remember being really mad…” For Jordan as he worked out after that, he’d get tired and then “I’d close my eyes and see that list on the locker room without my name on it, and that usually got me going again.”
This could have driven Jordan away from basketball; instead as Pillemer notes, it became a “powerful and persistent motivator.”
“Usually, autobiography is the domain of fiction or therapy,” says Pillemer. “But if we look at how memories serve a certain kind of function and bring it into a more scientific way of thinking, we can better understand these processes.”
—Carrie Sherman
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