Personal future events of immigrants: what is the role of remembering the distant or recent past?

Abstract

The present study investigated whether remembering the distant versus the recent personal past influences self-continuity levels and expected future event characteristics in a sample of immigrants. Seventy-three Turkish immigrants living in Denmark participated in three sessions involving questionnaires and life story interviews. In the first session, participants completed baseline measures of self-continuity, psychological wellbeing, acculturation, and demographics. In the second and third sessions, they recalled significant events and narrated life stories from pre-migration (distant past) and post-migration (recent past), followed by measures of self-continuity and wellbeing. After each memory recall, participants described three expected future events and rated them on phenomenological characteristics such as vividness and emotional valence. We analyzed differences in self-continuity and future event characteristics between the pre- and post-migration conditions, as well as the relationships among the variables, thematic content of future events, and their resemblance to cultural life scripts. Results revealed no significant differences in future event characteristics between the conditions. However, a small difference emerged in self-continuity levels: contrary to expectations, participants reported slightly higher self-continuity in the pre-migration condition than in the post-migration condition. These findings contribute to understanding of how autobiographical memory relate to future thinking and self in the context of migration.