Memorabilia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Memorabilia ( lat. Memorabilis = memorable; pl. Memorabilia ) are objects that humans keep because they have a sentimental value in them. They fulfill a mental function that is closely related to nostalgic emotions and help people to recall and preserve life events.

Nostalgia - defined as a sentimental longing for one's own past - is a self-relevant, if deeply social, ambivalent and at the same time more positive than negative emotion. The word is formed from the two Greek words Nostos ("homecoming") and Algos ("suffering"). It is often described as "the joy and sadness caused by remembering something from the past and wishing you could relive it." Nostalgia strengthens the feeling of social connectivity and can increase empathy. Furthermore, it increases the accessibility of positive self-attributes and can provide a coping mechanism for threats to one's own identity. Nostalgia is the basis of the function of memorabilia.

Identification through possessions

People define their self-image, among other things, by their possessions. This process of identifying with possessions begins in early childhood when the child learns to distinguish himself from the world around him. Modern humans now often collect objects in order to distinguish themselves from others and to define themselves. Because memorabilia help people remember positive events from the past, they can hold a high emotional value for them. Nostalgia helps people to find meaning in their life, which takes place primarily by increasing social ties and secondarily by increasing self-continuity.

If such possessions, i.e. objects, now trigger the emotion of nostalgia, this gives psychological advantages in the case of chronic or momentary deficits in meaning. This is about higher subjective vitality, less stress perception and regulation of the search for meaning as a reaction to boredom . It also protects against existential threats and contributes to psychological equanimity. Many people are very reluctant to give away objects that they associate with their past, for fear of loss of identity or the loss of memories of special events.

Relationships and life events

Memories called up in this way focus not only on close relationships (e.g. family, partnerships, friends), but also on significant or atypical life events such as For example, vacations, weddings, reunions, and cultural life script events that involve other people (such as Thanksgiving, Sunday lunch, high school graduation). Material things can play a narrative-autobiographical role to store and structure experiences and memories. In this way, they become souvenirs or instruments with which the past can be remembered and an identity can be formed. The memories are often related to positive experiences a person had in the past. Accordingly, by using memorabilia, negative emotions such as loneliness can be reduced from those positive experiences.

Such memories are triggered by a number of variables that can be linked to an object or are reinforced by it:

  • Uniqueness (Does the memory stand alone?)
  • Strength (The reminder trigger affects a person's emotional mood.)
  • Relationships of the environment (who influences whom?)
  • Change over time (e.g. the development of cameras, Polaroid vs. SLR, influence on the ability to remember.)
  • Personal perception (what does a person perceive, what is the mood like and how does it change?)
  • Preference (is the person attracted to more than one thing?)

Importance in old age

As people get older, objects that suggest financial status tend to take a back seat. Emotional objects that are associated with memories gain in importance. Remaining memories from early life are very resilient and hard to forget once they are memorized - but they are just as difficult to access. Especially with people with memory-influencing handicaps such as B. Alzheimer's patients , such memories are often a support for identity. Memorabilia are very effective in calling up such memories. They're significantly more effective at bringing back memories than words. In a study by Kirk and Berntsen (2018), the effects of memorabilia etc. a. as evidence that Alzheimer's patients do not lose memories, but simply cannot access them until they experience an appropriate trigger (in this case memorabilia) or a clear moment .

Protection against memory loss

People strive to preserve memories, and try it immediately to protect ( tight. Strategic memory protection ). This is ensured by two conservation strategies. On the one hand, consumers try to avoid the situation of a special memory if the situation deviates from the memory or if this could endanger the memory mechanism. If avoidance is not possible, as is the case with their own birthday, which is repeated annually, consumers resort to material things as mementos of individual memories in order to remember a specific one in addition to the recurring events. Therefore, serve physical objects with which one conferred by its owner shortcut was created as a reminder conservation tool ( tight. Memory pointer ).

Gender differences

There are minor gender differences in motivation to collect memorabilia. Women tend to buy more souvenirs, for example, and see them more as evidence of a vacation, for example, as well as a communication function when talking to guests or friends. In general, women are more often ascribed the role of "memory watchdog" in families than men and they contribute more often to the common memory capital of the family. However, souvenirs are mostly used as gifts by both sexes. The perceived authenticity of the souvenir plays a major role.

literature

  • R. Belk: Possessions and the Extended Self. In: Journal of Consumer Research. Volume 15, No. 2, 1988, doi : 10.1086 / 209154
  • S. Wildschut and C. Sedikes: Finding meaning in nostalgia. In: Review of General Psychology. 2017
  • D. Berntsen: Voluntary and involuntary access to autobiographical memory. In: Memory. Volume 2, 1998, pp. 113-141, doi : 10.1080 / 741942071

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wildschut and Sedikes: Finding meaning in nostalgia. In: Review of General Psychology. 2017, p. 2
  2. ↑ Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2014
  3. ↑ X. Zhou, T. Wildschut, T. Sedikides, K. Shi and C. Feng: Nostalgia: The Gift that keeps on giving. In: Journal of Consumer Research. Volume 39, No. 6, 2012, pp. 39-50
  4. ↑ a b M. Vess, J. Arndt, C. Routledge, C. Sedikides and T. Wildshut: Nostalgia as a Resource for the Self. In: Self and Identity. Volume 11, No. 3, 2012, pp. 273-284
  5. ^ R. Belk: Possessions and the extended self. In: Journal of Consumer Research. Volume 15, No. 2, 1988, pp. 139-168, doi : 10.1086 / 209154
  6. ↑ a b K. Winterich, R. Reczek and J. Irwin: Keeping the memory but not the possession: Memory preservation mitigates identity loss from product disposition. In: Journal of Marketing. Volume 81, No. 5, 2017, pp. 104-120, doi : 10.1509 / jm.16.0311
  7. ↑ W.-Y. Cheung, T. Wildschut, C. Sedikides, E. Hepper, J. Arndt and A. Vingerhoets: Nack to the future: Nostalgia increases optimism. In: Psychology Bulletin. Volume 39, No. 11, 2013, pp. 1484-1496, doi : 10.1177 / 0146167213499187
  8. ↑ a b S. Wildschut and C. Sedikes: Finding meaning in nostalgia. In: Review of General Psychology. 2017
  9. ↑ D. Berntsen and D. Rubin: Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory. In: Memory & Cognition. Volume 32, No. 3, 2004, pp. 427-442
  10. ^ J. Bruner: Life as Narrative. In: Social Research. Vol. 54, No. 1, 1987, pp. 11-32
  11. ↑ B. Phillips: The scrapbook as to autobiographical memory tool. 2016, doi : 10.1177 / 1470593116635878
  12. ↑ T. Wolf: Nostalgia and the functions of the autobiographical memory. In: Journal of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 2014, pp. 557-562
  13. ↑ E. van den Hoven and B. Eggen: The cue is key. Design for real-life remembering. 2018
  14. ↑ T. Wolf: Nostalgia and the functions of the autobiographical memory. In: Journal of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 2014, pp. 557-562, especially p. 588
  15. ^ R. Belk: Possessions and the extended self. In: Journal of Consumer Research. Volume 15, No. 2, 1988, pp. 139-168, especially p. 149, doi : 10.1086 / 209154
  16. ↑ M. Kirk and D. Berntsen: A short cut to the past. Cueing with concrete objects improves AM retrieval in AD patients. 2018
  17. ↑ G. Zaubermann, R. Ratner and B. Kim: Memories as assets: Strategic memory protection in choice over time. In: Journal of consumer research. Volume 35, No. 5, 2009, pp. 715-728
  18. ^ H. Wilkins: Souvenirs: What and why we buy. In: Journal of Travel Research. Volume 50, No. 3, 2011, pp. 239-247, doi : 10.1177 / 0047287510362782
  19. ^ R. Chalfen: Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987, doi : 10.1525 / var.1989.5.1.46
  20. ^ T. Goodsell and L. Seiter: Scrapbooking: Family Capital and the Construction of Family Discourse. In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. Volume 40, No. 3, 2011, pp. 318-341