From Individual to Collective Memory: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

This special issue of Memory is devoted to discussions and investigations of social memory phenomena. Very often our memories of the past are of events we shared with others and very often we share in remembering with others -- when parents and children reminisce about significant family events, when spouses argue over details of an event they attended together, when colleagues remind one another of information relevant to an important group decision, or when complete strangers discuss a crime they happened to witness together. Psychology is at the heart of recent interdisciplinary efforts to understand the relationship between individual and group memory. In six theoretical reviews and four original empirical reports, this special issue addresses two major themes. First, how do groups operate to process information, especially memories; what are the costs and benefits of collaborating? Second, what are the pathways to, and between, individual and collective memory; how do groups shape individual memory; how does remembering with others influence later individual recall? This volume draws together leading theorists and researchers from cognitive, developmental, clinical, and cross-cultural psychology to propose sophisticated, novel and testable ways to conceptualise collective memory.