A Comparison of Lifelines Recalled by Older Adults and Anticipated by Younger Adults

Abstract

The reminiscence bump effect is the tendency for older adults to recall more life events from their teens, twenties, and early thirties than from other decades of life. The purpose of this study was to compare patterns of life events recalled by older adults as they looked back at their past to life events anticipated by younger adults to occur in their future. Twenty-five older adults (mean age = 79.68 years, SD = 7.84) completed a lifeline by drawing the course of their life from birth to their current age, placing life events on the line, and indicating their age when each event occurred. Sixty-five younger adults (mean age = 18.88 years, SD = 0.82) completed a future-oriented lifeline by drawing the anticipated course of their life from their current age to the age of their anticipated death, placing anticipated life events on the line, and indicating their age when each event was expected to occur. Younger adults reported a significantly higher frequency of anticipated life events from the reminiscence bump period (58.60%) than did older adults recalling events from their past (35.29%). Younger adults anticipated a significantly higher percentage of negative life events (43.41%), compared to the percentage of those recalled by older adults (17.64%). Overall, the pattern of an anticipation bump for younger adults was similar to that of a reminiscence bump observed for older adults. Findings are consistent with a cultural life script account of the reminiscence bump.