Why We Tell Ourselves Stories

Memory recall is not like a videotape; our brains add our emotions, beliefs about ourselves, and more when we remember a moment in time. How do the stories we remember about ourselves shape who we think we are? Research shows that how we remember our past can greatly affect how we react to similar experiences in the future, creating patterns of behavior based on these responses.

Key Takeaways

• Our brains tend to remember key events or conversations that we then use as reference for future interactions and experiences.
• These beliefs can be both positive and negative, but can change how we see ourselves in specific situations or roles, i.e., being unlucky or lucky, “good” or “bad” at certain things.
• Whether for ourselves or for others, reshaping narratives that entrench us in cycles of self-doubt or harmful cycles can change the pattern of behavior.
• In relation to trauma, a survivor’s recall of events can change over hours, days, and years after the event. This makes trauma-informed education and credibility assessment training vital for understanding memory recall and its variability.
• We can reconstruct memories over time with new perspectives, beliefs, and additional experiences that are always changing.

Resources Mentioned

• Narrative Identity research: Dan McAdams, "Narrative Identity," Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, January 2011.
• Repeat victimization: Deborah Lamm Weisel, Analyzing Repeat Victimization, August 2005.
• Memory reconstruction: "Speaking of Psychology: How memory can be manipulated, with Elizabeth Loftus, PhD." Speaking of Psychology from the American Psychological Association, 2019 (updated August 2023).

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