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Personality traits and autobiographical memory:Openness is positively related to the experienceand usage of recollectionsAnne S. Rasmussen a & Dorthe Berntsen aa Aarhus University , DenmarkPublished online: 27 Sep 2010.
To cite this article: Anne S. Rasmussen & Dorthe Berntsen (2010) Personality traits and autobiographical memory:Openness is positively related to the experience and usage of recollections, Memory, 18:7, 774-786, DOI:10.1080/09658211.2010.514270
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Personality traits and autobiographical memory:Openness is positively related to the experience and
usage of recollections
Anne S. Rasmussen and Dorthe Berntsen
Aarhus University, Denmark
We examined the relationship between the Five-Factor Model of personality and the experience andoverall usage of autobiographical memory in two studies. In both studies we found that Openness wasrelated to the directive and self functions of overall usage. In addition, Openness was related to thevividness, reliving, coherence, and centrality of event to the person’s identity and life story of concretememories in Study 2, whereas this was not found in Study 1. For the remaining ‘‘Big Five’’ personalitytraits the results were less consistent across studies. Neuroticism was related to the self function in Study1, but also to the directive function as well as to negative affect of concrete memories in Study 1.Extraversion was positively related to the social function as well as to conversational rehearsal ofmemories in Study 1, but this was also not replicated in Study 2. Finally, in both studies there were nosignificant relationships with regard to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Overall, the findingsreplicate and extend previous work showing a positive relationship between Openness and theexperience and overall usage of autobiographical memory, whereas the roles for the remaining ‘‘BigFive’’ are less clear.
Keywords: Autobiographical memory; Personality traits.
Autobiographical memory is defined as memory
related to the self (e.g., Brewer, 1986, 1996;
Nelson, 1993; Tulving, 2002), and assumptions of
a reciprocal relationship between autobiographi-
cal information and personality are frequent in
the literature (e.g., Conway & Pleydell-Pearce,
2000; Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McAdams, 2001;
Rubin & Siegler, 2004). For instance, it has been
proposed that the life story of a person constitutes
the most global level of autobiographical memory
(e.g., Bluck & Habermas, 2000; Conway, 2005) as
well as one of three equally important levels of
personality, the two others being dispositional
personality traits and characteristic adaptations
(McAdams, 2001; McAdams & Pals, 2006). The
life story is regarded as global in the sense that it
forms the highest and most abstract level of
autobiographical memory, encompassing both
past and future event representations from the
person’s entire life (e.g., Conway, 2005). At the
same time, according to McAdams (2001), iden-
tity is the life story as it is reconstructed from the
individual’s autobiographical memories, and
expectations for the future. Furthermore, the
construction of the life story has been shown to
be related to both personality traits and charac-
teristic adaptations (e.g., McAdams et al., 2004;
Woike, Gersekovich, Piorkowski, & Polo, 1999).The present two studies focus on the relation-
ship between dispositional personality traits and
# 2010 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
Address correspondence to: Anne S. Rasmussen, Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology,
Aarhus University, Denmark, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, 8000 Aarhus C., Denmark. E-mail: [email protected]
The authors would like to thank Annette Bohn, Kim Berg Johannessen, Amanda Miles, and Hildur Finnbogadottir for helpful
comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation.
MEMORY, 2010, 18 (7), 774�786
http://www.psypress.com/memory DOI:10.1080/09658211.2010.514270
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autobiographical memory. For personality traitswe use the Five-Factor Model, otherwise knownas the ‘‘Big Five’’ (e.g., John & Srivastava, 1999;McCrae & Costa, 1999), which addresses person-ality in terms of five broad dimensions: Neuroti-cism (unsecure, easily upset, and emotionallyunstable) vs emotionally stable, Extraversion(talkative, assertive, and energetic) vs introver-sion, Openness (fantasy prone, creative, andindependent-minded) vs closedness to experi-ence, Agreeableness (sociable, trustful, andgood-natured) vs antagonism, and Conscientious-ness (orderly, responsible, and dependable) vslack of direction (e.g., John & Srivastava, 1999).For autobiographical memory we examine basicproperties related to the subjective experienceof having a memory as well as the overall usageor function of autobiographical memory. We willargue that Openness plays a special role forthe relationships between personality traits andthe experience and usage of autobiographicalmemory.
THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL ANDAUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY: ASPECIAL ROLE FOR OPENNESS?
Of the traits featured by the Five-Factor Model ofpersonality, Openness to Experience is the onethat is most associated with having a rich innermental life. Basically, Openness describes a ten-dency to being open to explore one’s fantasies,ideas and feelings. People who are rated high onOpenness may therefore subjectively experiencetheir memories with a stronger sense of sensoryreliving, vividness and emotion. To our knowl-edge, only two studies have addressed the rela-tionship between Openness and basic propertiesassociated with the experience of concrete auto-biographical memories. Rubin and Siegler (2004)examined the relationship between the Five-Factor Model of personality and basic propertiesrelated to the subjective experience of autobio-graphical memories and found support for aspecial role for Openness. For personality traits,they used the NEO Personality Inventory (NEOPI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) that measures the‘‘Big Five’’ in terms of five personality domainsand 30 underlying facets. For measures of sub-jective experience, they used the Autobiographi-cal Memory Questionnaire (AMQ; Rubin,Schrauf & Greenberg, 2003), which measuresbasic properties of autobiographical memories
such as mentally travelling back in time to theoriginal event, belief in the accuracy of the memory,sensory imagery, and emotion. The AMQ-scoreswere based on an aggregate score from 15 word-cued memories. The results showed that Opennesscorrelated positively with a number of measuresrelated to belief in the accuracy of the memoriesand sensory imagery.
Using a different subpopulation (the sampleconsisted of undergraduates that were rated aseither high or low on a standard PTSD scale) anda different set of memories (memories of theparticipants’ seven most important events, threemost emotionally positive and three most emo-tionally negative memories in addition to fifteenword-cued memories), Rubin, Boals, and Bernt-sen (2008) replicated the overall relationshipbetween Openness and basic properties. How-ever, the relationship with measures of specificproperties differed from Rubin and Siegler’s(2004) findings in that Openness correlated witholfactory imagery and rehearsal measures ratherthan with measures of belief and visual imagery.Of the remaining ‘‘Big Five’’ personality traits,only Neuroticism has shown a consistent relation-ship with a basic memory property, namely withnegative affect (e.g., Rubin et al., 2008; Sutin,2008), consistent with the idea of a special role forOpenness.
The relationship between Openness andrehearsal of autobiographical memories suggeststhat people who are open to explore their owninner experiences might use their memories morein everyday life than people who are less so.According to the prevailing theory (e.g., Bluck,2003; Cohen, 1998; Pillemer, 1992), autobiogra-phical memory serves three broad functions:directive, self, and social. The directive functioninvolves the usage of memories in problemsolving and guiding thinking and behaviour. Theself function involves the usage of memories indefining the self and identity. The social functioninvolves the usage of memories, when we sharememories with others in order to facilitatecommunication and social bonding. The threefunctions have been verified in association withboth measures of concrete recollections (e.g.,Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009) as well as withmeasures addressing the overall usage of auto-biographical memory generalised across concreterecollections (e.g., Bluck & Alea, 2009). In thepresent studies we address both types of mea-sures, but we focus on measures addressing theoverall usage of autobiographical memory.
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Openness may be especially associated withthe directive function of autobiographical mem-ories, since this trait has been linked to bothacademic achievement (e.g., Harms, Roberts &Winther, 2006; Poropat, 2009) and creativity (e.g.,King, McKee Walker, & Broyles, 1996; McCrae,1987; Silvia, 2007, 2008), suggesting that peoplewith higher ratings on Openness not only reflectmore on their inner experiences, but also aremore inclined to act on them and to use them forproblem solving. In addition, McAdams et al.,(2004) found that Openness was strongly relatedto the structural complexity of self-definingmemories. This may suggest that people whoscore high on Openness reflect more upon theirmemories for self-defining purposes. Consistentwith these ideas, Webster (1993) found that acombined factor addressing the directive (i.e.,problem solving) and self functions of overallautobiographical memory usage correlated posi-tively with Openness, whereas Cappeliez andO’Rourke (2002) found a positive relationshipbetween Openness and the self function. A recentstudy by Bluck and Alea (2009) also addressedthe relationship between Openness and autobio-graphical memory function, but did not replicateprevious findings. However, this study used dif-ferent measurement instruments for both person-ality and memory function. Studies have alsofound a relatively stable relationship betweenExtraversion and the social function of autobio-graphical memory (e.g., McLean & Pasupathi;2006; Webster, 1993).
In summary, the relationship between Open-ness and the overall usage of autobiographicalmemory are partly consistent with findings regard-ing the relationship between Openness and basicproperties of autobiographical memories: Open-ness has been found to correlate with one or moreof three assumed memory functions (i.e., thedirective and self functions). This agrees withstudies showing an association between Opennessand increased sensory imagery and rehearsal ofautobiographical memories. Furthermore, Extra-version shows a relatively consistent relationshipwith social functions of autobiographical memory,whereas Neuroticism shows a relatively consistentrelationship with negative affect. The roles ofAgreeableness and Conscientiousness are lessclear and inconsistent across studies, and havenot yet been examined in relation to the overallusage of autobiographical memory. Here, in twostudies, we examine the relationship between all‘‘Big Five’’ personality traits and the experience
and overall usage of autobiographical memory.Extending previous work (e.g., Rubin et al., 2008;Rubin & Siegler, 2004; Sutin, 2008), we alsoinclude measures of the three functions in rela-tion to concrete recollections.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants
A total of 119 folk high school students (76females, 43 males, mean age 20.72 years, SD�1.94, range 18�33 years) participated as part of alecture in general psychology. The data werecollected in group sessions at two different folkhigh schools.1 All participants were informed thattheir responses were anonymous, and it wasclearly stated that they were free to withdraw atany point during the procedure.
Questionnaires
Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire. TheAMQ is a theoretically motivated set of questionsaddressing properties of autobiographical mem-ories that have been shown to be systematicallyrelated to one another, as well as to be tappingactivity in different neural systems such as visionand emotion (Greenberg & Rubin, 2003). Itemscan vary slightly depending on the purpose of thestudy (e.g., Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009; Rubinet al., 2003Rubin et al., 2008; Rubin & Siegler,2004) and are considered individually instead offorming a scale. The AMQ variables and responseoptions used in the present study are presented inTable 1. Questions 1�2 address the physicalreaction and mood impact caused by the memory.Questions 3�13 and 20 address the amount andtype of subjective re-experiencing and sensoryimagery of the memory. Questions 14�16 addressdifferent types of rehearsal of the memory.Question 17 addresses the age of the memory.Question 18 addresses the subjective belief in theaccuracy of the memory. Question 24 addresses
1 A folk high school [folkehøjskole] in Denmark is an
institution of non-formal and continuing adult education often
with a dominance of creative and artistic topics, such as music,
drama, and painting. A typical folk high school student is a
young person who has finished ordinary high school, and who
wants to spend some time exploring a creative topic before
beginning his or her college education.
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the consequences of the remembered event. Most
of these variables have been used in previous
studies on the relationship between the Five-
Factor Model and properties of autobiographical
memory (Rubin et al., 2008; Rubin & Siegler,
2004; Sutin, 2008). The majority of the questions
are rated on 7-point rating scales with the
exceptions of Question 13 addressing specificity
and Question 22 that addresses the age of the
memory, which is calculated by subtracting the
answer to this question from the person’s current
age. The response options are described more
thoroughly in the note to Table 1.
Centrality of Event Scale. The 7-item version ofthe CES (Berntsen & Rubin, 2006) addresses the
centrality of the remembered event to personal
identity, the extent to which the memory is used
as a reference point for the attribution of mean-
ing to other events in memory, and whether the
event is considered a turning point in the person’s
life story. The questions are rated on 5-point
Likert scales (1�totally disagree, 5�totally
agree). Although this scale was developed to
measure the centrality of memories for negative
or traumatic events, it has also shown good
reliability in relation to other autobiographical
events (e.g., Johannessen & Berntsen, 2009;
Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009). The reliabilities
as measured by Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable
for all four memories (.896�.932). The inter-item-
correlations ranged from .359 to .820.
NEO Five Factor Inventory. The NEO-FFI(Costa & McCrae, 1992; Skovdahl Hansen,
Mortensen, & Schiøtz, 2004) addresses individual
differences in personality. This 60-item scale
measures the Neuroticism (N), Extraversion
(E), Openness (O), Agreeableness (A), and
Conscientiousness (C) domains of personality.
Each subscale contains 12 items that are rated
on 5-point Likert scales (0�strongly disagree,
4�strongly agree).2 The reliabilities as measured
by Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable for all five
personality traits (.817 for Neuroticism, .768 for
Extraversion, .608 for Openness, .777 for Agree-
ableness and .815 for Conscientiousness).
2 In the Danish version of the NEO-FFI (Skovdahl Hansen
et al., 2004), each domain consists of the two items that loaded
highest on each of the six facets in a domain. Thus every facet
is represented in the given domain in the Danish version. This
is different from the US version, where the 12 items with the
highest loading on each domain represent the given domain
regardless of facets.
TABLE 1
Autobiographical memory questionnaire used in Study 1
Number of variable and question
1. Physical: The memory triggered a physical reaction (e.g. palpitations, feeling restless, tense, tears, laughter)
2. Mood: The memory affected my mood
3. Back in time: The memory made me feel as if I travelled back in time to the actual situation
4. Vividness: The memory appears vivid and clear
5 .Visual: While remembering the event, I can see it in my mind
6. Auditory: While remembering the event, I can hear it in my mind
7. Olfactory: While remembering the event, I can smell and/or taste it in my mind
8. Setting: While remembering the event, I can recall the physical surroundings
9. Reliving: While remembering the event, it feels as though I relive it in my mind
10. Perspective: While remembering the event, I see it from a my own eyes rather than an observers eyes
11. Valence: The feelings I experience, as I recall the event are extremely negative or positive
12. Intensity: The feelings I experience, as I recall the event, are intense
13. Specificity: The memory deals with an event that occurred once on a specific day, or a mixture of similar events from from
more than one day
14. Conversational: Since it happened, I have talked about the event
15. Voluntary: Since it happened, I have thought about the event
16. Involuntary: Since it happened, the event has popped up in my mind by itself, that is, without me trying to recall it
17. Age of memory: How old were you when the event occurred?
18. Belief: I am convinced that the event took place as I remember it
19. Consequences: The event has had consequences in my life
20. Coherence: As I recall the event, it seems to come to me as a coherent story (as opposed to incoherent or in flashes)
Response options for questions 1�9, 12, 18�20: 1�not at all, 7� to a very high degree; for questions 14�16: 1�almost never, 7�extremely often; for question 10: 1�my own eyes, 7�an observers eyes; for question 11: �3�extremely negative, 3�extremely
positive; for question 13: 1� specific memory, 0�generalised memory; for question 17: I was ____ years. In the analyses (and
following tables), age of memory was calculated by subtracting the answer to question 17 from the person’s age.
PERSONALITY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY 777
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Thinking About Life ExperiencesQuestionnaire. The TALE addresses people’sself-reported reasons for thinking and talkingabout the past (Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin,2005). In the initial construction of the TALE,exploratory factor analysis supported a four-factor model with one very broad directivefunction, one narrow self function, and twonarrow social functions. In order to simplify ouranalyses and the comparisons with Study 2, weconstructed an aggregate score of the two socialfunctions (e.g., Rasmussen & Habermas, 2010 forempirical justification of this solution). Hence,in our version, the TALE measures one directive(14 items), one self (4 items), and one social(6 items) function. Two introductory itemsaddress the frequency of overall thinking andtalking about the past. The instructions are:‘‘Sometimes people think back over their life ortalk to other people about their life � it may beabout things that happened quite a long time agoor more recently. We are not so interested in thetimes that you think back over specific events asin when and how you bring together and connectthe events and periods of your life’’ (Bluck et al.,2005, p. 97). This instruction is followed by a stemstatement to the 24 function items: I think backover or talk about my life or certain periods of mylife . . . All items, including the two introductoryquestions, are rated on 6-point scales (1�never,6�very frequently). The reliabilities as measuredby Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable (.867 for thedirective function, .823 for the self function and.706 for the social function).
Procedure
Participants first answered the AMQ and the7-item version of the CES for the four memoriesin randomised order. Comparative analyses of thebasic properties of the four types of memorieshave been presented elsewhere (see Rasmussen& Berntsen, 2009). The cues for the four mem-ories were: ‘‘Try to recall a memory of an eventthat you think of in order to handle present orfuture situations’’, ‘‘Try to recall a memory of anevent that tells you something about your identity’’,‘‘Try to recall a memory of an event that you haveoften shared with others’’, and ‘‘Try to recall amemory of a random event from the last week’’.The first three cues were constructed to samplememories that map onto the directive, self andsocial functions respectively, whereas the last cuewas constructed to generate a recent memory
with no specific function. We used these cues inorder to examine whether the three functionswould also differ with respect to their relations tothe Five-Factor Model when referring to concretememories rather than to the overall usage ofautobiographical memory, and whether memoriesreferring to the three functions would differ froma memory with no specific function. The cues werepresented on a screen and read out loud by theexperimenter. Finally, the participants answeredthe NEO-FFI and the TALE in that order.
Results
Given the age and gender differences in person-ality, all analyses controlled for these two factors(e.g., with partial correlations or in the regressionanalyses). Given the relationships between theFive-Factor Model and the three functions in termsof their overall usage, we first examined thecorrelations between the Five-Factor Model andthe measures of each memory separately. How-ever, since there were no systematic differencesbetween the four memories, we constructed ag-gregate scores across memories. Table 2 presentsthe correlations between the Big Five personalitytraits and the aggregate scores for the fourmemories sampled in Study 1. Because of theexploratory nature of the study and the incon-sistencies of previous findings, we needed tocorrect the standard .05 significance level formultiple correlations. At the same time, sinceprevious findings suggested an overall relationshipbetween Openness and central properties of auto-biographical memories, a standard Bonferronicorrection would seem to be overly conservative.Following Rubin and Siegler (2004), we thereforeset the significance level to .01, allowing for lessthan one out of 100 correlations to be significant bychance. As shown in Table 2, there were only fewsignificant correlations between the five person-ality traits and the AMQ-variables. Consistentwith previous work, Neuroticism correlated nega-tively with emotional valence. Extraversion corre-lated positively with conversational rehearsal.Unexpectedly, there were only one significantcorrelation between Openness and the AMQ-variable, namely physical reaction. Neither Agree-ableness nor Conscientiousness correlated withany of the AMQ-variables.
The correlations between the Big Five person-ality traits and overall autobiographical memoryfunction as measured by the TALE as well as the
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intercorrelations for the NEO-FFI and the TALE
are presented in Table 3. Consistent with previous
research, Openness correlated positively with the
directive and self functions, but also with the
social function. As in some previous work (Cap-
peliez & O’Rourke, 2002), Neuroticism corre-
lated positively with the self function but here
also with the directive function. Not surprisingly,
Extraversion correlated positively with the social
function.In order to disentangle the relationship between
personality traits and autobiographical memory
function we conducted a series of hierarchical
multiple regression analyses, controlling for age
and gender, with the three functions as dependent
variables and the significantly correlated person-
ality traits as independent predictor variables.
Consistent with the predictions, Openness pre-
dicted the self function (R2�.116; DR2�.096; pB
.005; bO�.238, pB.05; N�112) and Extraversion
predicted the social function (R2�.229; DR2�.111; pB.001; bE�.284, pB.0005; N�108). Con-
trary to our expectations, Neuroticism was the only
significant predictor for the directive function
(R2�.139; DR2�.087; pB.01; bN�.246, pB.005;
N�111).
TABLE 2
Partial correlations between personality traits and autobiographical memory characteristics in Study 1, controlling for age and
gender
AMQ variable N E O A C
Physical Reaction .095 �.057 �.284* .005 �.032
Mood Change �.110 .121 �.201 .124 �.033
Back in time .171 �.006 �.014 .143 �.016
Vividness �.037 .199 �.163 .221 .090
Visual .055 .219 �.036 .167 �.017
Auditory .091 .017 �.042 .047 �.027
Olfactory .199 �.043 .021 .036 .020
Setting .068 .259 �.101 .201 �.083
Reliving .078 .255 .056 .157 .109
Perspective .121 �.026 .067 �.186 �.234
Valence �.323* .168 �.101 .169 .009
Intensity .150 .121 .011 .161 �.025
Specificity proportion .065 .117 .020 .080 �.008
Conversational rehearsal �.036 .298* �.036 �.030 �.110
Voluntary rehearsal .185 .093 .063 .089 �.195
Involuntary rehearsal .080 .107 �.066 .059 �.135
Age of Memory �.033 .084 .168 .040 �.118
Belief .122 .177 �.036 .018 �.111
Consequences .044 .049 .098 �.011 �.090
Coherence �.131 .262 �.095 �.016 �.098
CES score .242 .002 .140 .101 �.114
*pB.01; N� Neuroticism; E�Extraversion; O� Openness; A� Agreeableness; C� Conscientiousness.
TABLE 3
Partial correlations between the TALE and the NEO-FFI and intercorrelations in Study 1, controlling for age and gender
Directive Self Social N E O A C
Directive 1 .561*** .556*** .287** .138 .240* .119 .096
Self 1 .308** .224* �.003 .309** .123 .091
Social 1 .120 .327** .207* .176 .059
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
N 1 �.267** .262** .008 �.210*
E 1 .219* �.050 .116
O 1 .148 �.016
A 1 .042
C 1
*pB.05; **pB.01; ***pB.0005; N�119; N� Neuroticism; E� Extraversion; O� Openness; A� Agreeableness; C�Conscientiousness.
PERSONALITY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY 779
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Summary and discussion
The correlations between the Big Five personality
traits and three autobiographical memory func-
tions as measure on the TALE were largely
consistent with previous findings. In order to
further pursue this finding, in Study 2 we use a
revised edition of the TALE (TALE-R; Bluck &
Alea, 2009) with a more even distribution of
items across the three functions, and we also
include the Reminiscence Function Scale (RFS;
Webster, 1993, 1997), which have been used
previously to measure the relationship between
autobiographical memory function and personal-
ity (Cappeliez & O’Rourke, 2002; Webster, 1993).Consistent with previous findings (Rubin et al.,
2008), we found that higher ratings on Neuroti-
cism were related to having emotionally more
negative memories. However, we did not repli-
cate previous findings showing systematic rela-
tions between Openness and measures of
autobiographical memory properties. One possi-
ble explanation is that the memory cues in the
present study differed from the ones used in
previous work by referring to functions of auto-
biographical memories (except for the memory of
a recent event). Retrieval from such cues may be
less based on associative processes than what has
been the case in previous work. It is possible that
the effort of conscious decision making required
in the present retrieval task may disrupt the
associative processes that are involved in the
proposed relationship between Openness and
autobiographical memory. Indeed, earlier studies
have used more simple cues, which seem more
likely to initiate an associative search process. In
Study 2 we remedy this problem by using more
simple cues, consistent with previous work (e.g.,
Rubin et al., 2008).
STUDY 2
We used a different set of memory cues as
compared to the ones in Study 1. Again, we
expected to find a relationship between Openness
and properties related to the sensory reliving and
rehearsal of concrete memories. Furthermore, we
expected that the TALE-R, and the correspond-
ing function-subscales on the RFS, would corre-
late with the NEO-FFI in the same way as, the
TALE and the NEO-FFI did in Study 1.
Method
Participants
A total of 136 psychology undergraduates (115females, 21 males, mean age 25.7 years, SD�4.95,range 20�43 years) participated as part of aresearch methods course in psychology.
Questionnaires
Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire. Thememory AMQ from Study 1 (see Table 1) waschanged in order to measure the directive, self,and social functions as rating scale questions inresponse to concrete memories, and to differenti-ate more precisely between voluntary and invo-luntary rehearsal. The two questions aboutspecificity and belief were left out (Questions 13and 18 in Table 1). The questions addressing thethree memory functions were (see Rasmussen &Berntsen, 2009): (1) I think of this memory inorder to handle present or future situations. (2)This memory tells me something about my identity.(3) I have often shared this memory with otherpeople. They were rated on 7-point scales (1�notat all, 7�to a very high degree). Question 15addressing voluntary rehearsal (see Table 1)was changed into: Since it happened, I havedeliberately thought back to the event in mymind (1�almost never, 7�extremely often).
Centrality of Event Scale. The CES is describedin the methods section to Study 1 The reliabilitiesin the present study as measure by Cronbach’salpha were acceptable for all four memories(.857�.993). The inter-item correlations rangedfrom .257 to .822.
NEO Five Factor Inventory. The NEO-FFI isdescribed in the methods section to Study 1. Thereliabilities in the present study as measured byCronbach’s alpha were acceptable for all fivepersonality traits (.813 for Neuroticism, .836 forExtraversion, .635 for Openness, .785 for Agree-ableness and .810 for Conscientiousness).
Thinking About Life Experiences RevisedQuestionnaire. The TALE-R (Bluck & Alea,2009) addresses the directive (Directing Beha-viour), self (Self-Continuity), and social (SocialBonding) functions of autobiographical memoryas a general way of thinking and talking about thepast. It is based on confirmatory factor analysis ofthe 24 items used in the original TALE (Blucket al., 2005; see Study 1) with minor changes and
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six additional items. The results from this analysissupported a three-factor solution with 15 items(5 for each function; see Alea & Bluck, 2007). Ofthese, 13 were overlapping with items from theoriginal TALE: 4 from Directive, 5 from Self-Continuity, 3 from Developing Relationships, and1 from Nurturing Relationships. The instructionsand two introductory questions concerning over-all thinking and talking about the past are similarto the original TALE, but the items in TALE-Rare all rated on 5-point scales (1�almost never,5�very frequently) instead of 6-point scales aswas the case for the TALE. The reliabilities asmeasured by Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable(.775 for the directive function, .801 for the selffunction, and .735 for the social function).
Reminiscence Function Scale. This 43-itemscale (Webster, 1993, 1997) measures eight differ-ent reminiscence functions: Identity (6 items),Problem Solving (6 items), Conversation (5items), Teach/Inform (5 items), Death Preparation(6 items), Boredom Reduction (6 items), IntimacyMaintenance (4 items), and Bitterness Revival (5items). Problem Solving, Identity, and Conversa-tion are the functions that correspond mostly withthe three autobiographical memory functions(Bluck & Alea, 2002; Webster, 2003). However,Teach/Inform might also be seen as a socialfunction, whereas Intimacy Maintenance (i.e.,thinking about memories of a deceased lovedone), Bitterness Revival, and Boredom Reductionhave been described as negative self functions(Cappeliez & O’Rourke, 2006). The last reminis-cence function Death Preparation (i.e., reviewingone’s life in order to prepare for death) has alsobeen described as a kind of self function (Bluck &Alea, 2002; Cappeliez & O’Rourke, 2006). Theformat of the RFS is similar to the TALE andTALE-R. The instructions are: ‘‘At differentpoints throughout their lives, most adults thinkabout their past. Recalling earlier times canhappen spontaneously or deliberately, privatelyor with other people, and may involve remember-ing both happy and sad episodes. The process ofrecalling memories from our personal past iscalled reminiscence, an activity engaged in byadults of all ages. This questionnaire concerns thewhy, or functions of reminiscence . . .’’ (Webster,1993). The stem statement for each item is: ‘‘WhenI reminiscence it is to . . .’’. Participants are askedto respond on a 6-point scale (1�never, 6�veryfrequently), how frequently they reminiscencewith a particular purpose in mind. The reliabilities
as measured by Cronbach’s alpha were acceptable(.873 for Problem Solving, .892 for Identity, .857for Death Preparation, .875 for Bitterness Revival,.857 for Intimacy Maintenance, .872 for BoredomReduction, .853 for Conversation and .814 forTeach/Inform).
Procedure
The participant first answered the modifiedversion of the AMQ and the 7-item version of theCES for five individual memories in randomisedorder. As with Study 1, comparative analyses ofthe memory characteristics for the five typesof memories have been presented elsewhere(Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009). The cues for thefive memories were: ‘‘Your most positive mem-ory’’, ‘‘Your most negative memory’’, ‘‘Your mostfrequent involuntary memory’’, ‘‘Your most vividflashbulb memory’’, and ‘‘A random memoryfrom the last week’’. The participants were firstoffered a definition and an example of thememories before seeing the cues. The participantsthen followed a procedure that was similar toStudy 1, except that the cues were written on thefirst page of the AMQ and hidden under a label.Finally, the participants answered the NEO-FFI,TALE-R and the RFS in that order.
Results
As in Study 1 we controlled for age and gender inall of the analyses (e.g., with partial correlationsor in the regression analyses). For the samereasons as in Study 1 we constructed aggregatescores across memories. Table 4 presents thecorrelations between the Big Five personalitytraits and an aggregate score of the five memoriessampled in the study. The significance level wasset to .009 using the same correction for multiplecorrelations as in Study 1. Contrary to Study 1,but confirming our predictions, Openness corre-lated positively with vividness, reliving, coher-ence, and centrality of event to the person’sidentity and life story. In addition there werealso a number of positive correlations betweenOpenness and AMQ-variables, which were sig-nificant on the pB.05 level (e.g., physical reac-tion, visual and olfactory imagery, emotionalintensity, and consequences). There were nosignificant correlations between AMQ-variablesand any of the other personality traits and onlyfew correlations with a magnitude larger than .2.
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The correlations between Neuroticism and Emo-tional valence, as well as between Extraversionand conversational rehearsal which was found inStudy 1, were not significant in the present study,but there were trends in the expected direction.
The correlations between the Big Five person-ality traits and overall autobiographical memoryfunction as measured by the TALE as well as theintercorrelations for the NEO-FFI, the TALE-R,and the RFS are presented in Table 5. Consistentwith previous research as well as with Study 1,Openness correlated positively with the directiveand self functions, whereas Neuroticism correlatedpositively with the self function. Contrary to Study1 as well as previous research, Extraversion did notcorrelate with the social function. Also contrary toStudy 1, but consistent with previous work, Neu-roticism did not correlate with the directive func-tion. As in Study 1, neither Agreeableness norConscientiousness correlated significantly withany of the three functions. The results for theRFS largely mirrored the results for the concep-tually overlapping TALE-R. Problem Solving (i.e.directive function), Identity and Death Prepara-tion (i.e., self functions) correlated positively withOpenness. Bitterness Revival (i.e., self function)correlated positively with Neuroticism. Finally,contrary to previous work as well as Study 1,
neither Conversation nor Teach/Inform (i.e., socialfunctions) correlated positively with Extraversion.
In order to further clarify the relationshipbetween personality traits and autobiographicalmemory function, we conducted a series ofhierarchical multiple regression analyses, control-ling for age and gender, with the three functions asdependent variables and the significantly corre-lated personality traits as independent predictorvariables. For the TALE-R, Openness predictedthe self function (R2�.067; DR2�.081; pB.005;bO�.235, pB.005; N�112). For the RFS, bothNeuroticism and Agreeableness predicted Bitter-ness Revival (R2�.201; DR2�.196; pB.0005;bN�.253, pB.005; bA��.372, pB.0005; N�111) but in opposite directions.
Summary
Contrary to Study 1, but consistent with previousstudies, the results from Study 2 confirmed theproposed relationship between Openness andbasic properties of autobiographical memories.More specifically, higher ratings on Opennesswere related to higher ratings on vividness,reliving, coherence, and centrality of event tothe person’s identity and life story, whereas there
TABLE 4
Partial correlations between personality traits and autobiographical memory characteristics in Study 2, controlling for age and
gender
AMQ variable N E O A C
Directive function �.079 .008 .195 �.095 .081
Self function .007 .027 .187 �.110 .048
Social function �.133 .145 �.166 �.135 .143
Physical reaction .131 .161 .209 �.161 �.059
Mood change .078 .069 .162 �.100 �.051
Back in time .087 �.017 .159 �.003 .231
Vividness .038 �.060 .275* .119 .110
Visual .122 �.130 .216 .019 .116
Auditory �.013 .033 .192 �.051 .087
Olfactory �.042 .117 .233 .033 .008
Setting .145 �.070 .124 .100 .067
Reliving .123 �.034 .309* �.044 .017
Perspective .126 �.003 .060 .063 �.165
Valence �.176 .045 �.059 .081 �.014
Intensity �.017 .146 .225 �.088 .070
Conversational Rehearsal �.148 .204 �.175 �.103 .149
Voluntary Rehearsal �.139 .047 .061 �.209 .102
Involuntary Rehearsal .001 .087 .190 �.179 .073
Age of memory .095 .058 �.065 �.010 �.007
Consequences �.062 .073 .232 �.210 .110
Coherence �.038 .029 .249* .108 .143
CES score .044 .024 .261* �.150 .089
*pB.009; N�Neuroticism; E�Extraversion; O�Openness; A�Agreeableness; C�Conscientiousness.
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TABLE 5
Partial correlations between the TALE-R, the NEO-FFI, and the RFS and intercorrelations in Study 2, controlling for age and gender
DIR SEL SOC N E O A C PRO IDE DEA BIT INT BOR CON TEA
DIR 1 .504** .288* .162 .060 .309** �.004 .135 .573** .534** .341** .307** .051 .128 .325** .221*
SEL 1 .090 .193* �.088 .233* .021 �.031 .366** .551** .356** .229* .074 .214* .217* .272**
SOC 1 .021 .082 .139 �.111 �.008 .276* .240* .216* .079 .500** .126 .014 .131
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N 1 �.527** .031 �.082 �.309** .083 .012 �.140 .279* �.083 �.169 .138 .089
E 1 .208* .055 .215* .083 .128 .136 �.115 .127 .184 �.074 �.023
O 1 .061 �.083 .287* .356** .315** .050 �.099 .059 .157 �.067
A 1 .038 �.083 �.073 �.142 �.364** �.068 �.084 �.271* �.004
C 1 .073 .089 �.008 �.039 .018 .010 .058 �.106
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PRO 1 .747** .417** .381** .327** .273* .270* .360**
IDE 1 .514** .302* .284* .313** .266* .275*
DEA 1 .280* .145 .455** .317** .307**
BIT 1 .101 .134 .356** .346**
INT 1 .227* .067 .280*
BOR 1 .196* .193*
CON 1 .445**
TEA 1
*pB.05; **pB.0005; DIR�Directive; SEL�Self; SOC�Social; N�119; N�Neuroticism; E�Extraversion; O�Openness; A�Agreeableness; C�Conscientiousness; PRO�Problem Solving; IDE� Identity; DEA�Death Preparation; BIT�Bitterness Revival; CON�Conversation; TEA�Teach/Inform; INT� Intimacy Maintenance; BOR�Boredom
Reduction.
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were no significant correlations between theAMQ and the remaining ‘‘Big Five’’ personalitytraits.
The correlations between Openness and over-all autobiographical memory usage as measuredon the TALE-R as well as the correspondingfunctions on the RFS largely replicated the resultsfrom Study 1. In particular, Openness correlatedpositively with the directive and self functions,and Neuroticism correlated positively with theself function. Contrary to Study 1, Neuroticismand Openness did not correlate significantly withthe directive and social function, respectively, butthe results were in the predicted direction.Surprisingly, in Study 2 we failed to find theexpected relation between Extraversion andsocial functions of autobiographical memory.However, this may be due to different operatio-nalisations of the social function in the twoTALE-questionnaires (i.e., see the Method sec-tion).
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Overall, the findings from the two studies areconsistent with the assumption that Openness ispositively associated with the extent to whichindividuals engage in and think they benefit fromautobiographical remembering. Study 1 showedthis relationship only for the overall usage ofautobiographical memories, whereas Study 2showed this relation for both measures of theoverall usage of autobiographical memory as wellas for properties of concrete recollections. Thecorrelations between Openness and the directiveand self functions of overall usage were signifi-cant in both the two studies, whereas the relationswith the properties of concrete recollectionsshowed less consistent results. Openness corre-lated with vividness, reliving and coherence inStudy 2, whereas the same correlations wereeither of very small magnitudes or negative inStudy 1. The correlation between Openness andcentrality of the event to the person’s identity andlife story was significant in Study 2, but onlyshowed a non-significant trend in Study 1. Thus,across the two studies, Openness showed a con-sistent relationship with self-related overall usageof autobiographical memories, and, in Study 2,Openness also showed systematic correlationswith self-related properties of concrete memories.Taken together the two studies thereby largelyreplicate previous work (Cappeliez & O’Rourke,
2002; McAdams et al., 2004; Webster, 1993),although the inconsistencies call for moreresearch.
The divergent findings from Studies 1 and 2regarding concrete recollections call for someconcern regarding the reliability of the proposedrelationship between Openness and properties ofautobiographical memories. In Study 1 we usedcues referring to the directive, self and socialfunctions, but obtained no significant correlationsbetween the expected basic memory propertiesand personality traits. However, this may havebeen because the function cues, because of theirabstract nature, restrained the participants. Incontrast, previous work has used more simpleresponse tasks such as word cues or requests forhighly positive or negative memories (see Rubinet al., 2008; Rubin & Siegler, 2004), which aremore likely to activate a search that rely on freeassociation. It is possible that the abstract cues inthe retrieval task used in Study 1 might have sentthe participants out on a very complicated road toretrieval, thereby hampering the associative pro-cesses involved in the proposed relationshipbetween Openness and autobiographical memory.Consistent with this idea, we confirmed theexpected relationship between Openness andbasic memory properties in Study 2, where weused cues more similar to previous work. Futurestudies should examine the relationship betweenOpenness and memories referring to specificfunctions in more natural contexts (e.g., inproblem-solving contexts or social situations).The few divergent findings between Studies 1and 2 with regard to overall memory usage weremore likely due to the use of slightly differentmeasures in the two studies.
On a more general level, the present studieshave some limitations, which may also havecontributed to the inconsistent findings. First,the sample sizes in both studies were on the smallside, but similar to previous work (e.g., Blucket al., 2005; Rubin et al., 2008; Rubin & Siegler,2004; Webster, 1993). The use of relatively smallsamples may explain why earlier as well as thepresent studies have found a general relationshipbetween Openness and the experience and usageof autobiographical memory, but failed to findconsistent relationships with specific properties ofconcrete memories and*to a lesser degree*specific functions of overall usage. Future studiesshould use larger sample sizes. Second, it ispossible that if the memories had been told orwritten in more detail, the ratings of subjective
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experiencing might have been more reliable andthe findings therefore more consistent. However,consistent with our central idea that Openness ispositively related to the experience and usage ofautobiographical memory, Adler, McAdams, andWagner (2007) found a relationship betweenOpenness and the coherence of stories told byformer psychotherapy clients, suggesting that thetwo methods yield similar results.
In summary, dispositional personality traitsand the experience and usage of autobiographicalmemory are linked to each other through the lifestory. People, who score high on Openness tendto use their memories more for problem solvingand behaviour guidance as well as for self- andidentity-defining purposes, consistent with theirenhanced intellectual, creative, and narrativeabilities. They also experience their memorieswith a stronger sense of life story relevance. Thismay be because the ability to remember pastevents as well as the related ability of imaginingpossible future scenarios in a broader senseconcerns the ability and propensity to acknowl-edging realities that present alternatives to ourimmediately present lives. Overall, the presentfindings replicate and extend previous findings ofa relationship between Openness and autobio-graphical memory.
Manuscript received 5 October 2009
Manuscript accepted 11 July 2010
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