Shuman and Rodgers (2004) Cohorts, Chronology, and Collective Memories

Abstract:
We asked Americans to tell us the national and world events that they believe to have been especially important sive the 1930s, using replicated cross-section surveys carried out in 1985, in 2000 and after september 11, 2001. Our primary interests are, first, in how collective memoies change as new events occur, such as the eold of the COld war or the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and second, in whether the origin of such memries during the critical period of adolescence ad early adulthood, as well as their connetion with education, remain stable over time and constisent with theory. As part of our investigation we consider four related issues: collective forgetting as as well collective remembering; the distinction between ease of recalling events and judgments of their importance; compound events, wic are composed of sub-events tat can be remembered separately by respnodents; and larger social and technologcal changes difficult or impossible to date with any precision. Panel data frm the second and third surveys, obtain sdhortly after 911, air in determining which earlier collective memories were superseded by memories of the terrorist attack itself.

memories of earlier events come into competition with more recent events; which are most pronounced when forces to recall them? TO what extent is this recall connected to two social background variables: education and cohort experience?

Our youth is a "critical period." experiences during our adolescence have an especially strong impact on memory. Learning about events second hand (i.e. learning about the depression in history class) is not nearly the same as learning about the depression by living through it (218). yet, events experienced when one is old, and hardened in their ways and opinions, are also less likely to have a substantial impact. thus we see experience, as well as age, determine an event's impact on an individuald values/attitudes. "moreover, an onging event stimulates conversations with others that also enhance memory" (219).

Changes in the Events Americans Remember as Important (223):
from 1985-2000

from 2000-2001