Doctored Autobiographies - Why Indescretions Appear Youthful
“In recent years psychologists have exposed the many ways that people subconsciously maintain and massage their moral self-image. They rate themselves as morally superior to the next person; overestimate the likelihood that they will act virtuously in the future; see their own good intentions as praiseworthy while dismissing others’ as inconsequential. And they soften their moral principles when doing a truly dirty job, like carrying out orders to exploit uninformed customers.
Now scientists are beginning to learn how memory assists and even amplifies this righteous self-messaging. In piecing together a life story, the mind nudges moral lapses back in time and shunts good deeds forward, these new studies suggest — creating, in effect, a doctored autobiography.
Researchers note that many unpleasant events feel more distant than they actually are, not just morally charged ones. Students who did poorly on an exam sense the experience as further in the past than tests on which they did well, and took at about the same time. The same goes for memories of high school among young adults: those who hated their time in those locker-lined hallways feel further from their teenage selves than those who enjoyed it.
The psychologically buoying effect of such ascending-toward-heaven autobiographies is obvious. But redemption is is also a thematic staple of the life stories that content American adults tell about themselves, said Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern and the author of “The Redemptive Self.” Such stories “are so much a part of the culture we grow up with as Americans that they seem ‘natural,’ ” Dr. McAdams said by e-mail. “But is this how people narrate their lives in all other societies?””
