Your memories have no power here: A cross-cultural examination of autobiographical recall in a context of social

The main driver behind this dissertation was to examine, across cultural contexts, whether the psychological impact of social identity threat can be ameliorated using mastery recall affirmation – whereby individuals are prompted to reflect upon times in their lives where they faced a difficult challenge and successfully overcame it. In doing so, I drew from two theoretical domains, namely self-affirmation and autobiographical recall and more specifically the directive function of autobiographical recall. The cultural context is also a central feature of this dissertation as most studies on selfaffirmation stem from Western, WIERD contexts with the overwhelming majority of the non-Western studies coming from East Asian (e.g. Chen et al., 2021; Ma & Nan, 2019; Wang, 2020) and Southeast Asian countries (e.g. Manley et al., 2020). Refining the search for self-affirmation studies addressing social identity threat in a non-Western context, even fewer studies emerge (e.g., gender stereotype threat in Çetinkaya et al., 2020). This resonates with a larger concern within the field of psychology, calling into question the assumption of uniformity of basic cognitive and motivational processes (Henrich et al., 2010). As such, I set out to assess mastery recall affirmation as a threat management mechanism in the United States and the nonWEIRD context of Lebanon - a small Middle Eastern country with a multicultural societal makeup comprising 18 recognized religious and ethnic groups, a history of civil war and ongoing sectarian conflict as well as marked economic decline. Self-affirmation has been shown to promote wellbeing (see Epton et al. 2015; Sweeney & Moyer, 2015), improve educational outcomes (see Wu et al. 2021), and mitigate social identity threat effects (Derks, et al., 2006). However, empirical evidence supporting the mechanisms driving these effects is limited. The most commonly implicated mechanism is self-resource maintenance, where reflecting on valued aspects of the self, increases self-worth by tapping into an individual’s self-resources (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Other mechanisms include self-transcendence (Crocker, et al. 2008) and self-compassion (Lindsay & Creswell, 2014). What seems common across these mechanisms is a focus on the self; and given that the self-memory system views autobiographical memories as central to the working self, regulating and guiding goals (Conway, 2005; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), and since the efficacy of affirmation interventions is moderated by delivery mode, with essays having larger effects (e.g., Epton et al. 2015), then autobiographical recall, which would be needed when one is asked to reflect upon their valued self-aspects, and specifically mastery recall, is proposed as a mechanism that can cuts across self-related outcomes. I focused on memories of mastery, which qualify as directive memories (Pillemer, 2003) as they can play a self-affirmative role, providing reassurance and a sense of competence in adverse situations – as social identity threat. Following from the above, the below research questions were addressed in the thesis: 1) Is mastery recall effective in mitigating threats to social identity in a sample of U.S. Americans (Chapter 2)? 2) Is mastery recall relative to value affirmation effective in mitigating stereotype threat in a sample of African Americans i49n the United States (Chapter 3)? 3) Is mastery recall also effective in mitigating threats to social identity in the nonWestern context of Lebanon at the national and ethnic identity levels (Chapter 4)? 4) How does the larger cultural context impact the experience of social identity threat and the efficacy of affirmation interventions (Chapter 5)? Is mastery recall effective in mitigating threats to social identity in a sample of U.S. Americans? Autobiographical memories have been implicated in maintaining the selfenhancement motive which contributes to an overall favorable view of the self (Wilson et al., 2009). In a context of social identity threat therefore, a directive memory - a memory that guides present and future thought and behavior (Bluck et al., 2005) and solve current problems (Cohen, 1998) – and specifically one where a personally relevant challenging situation is mastered can mitigate threat by bolstering self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) and restoring a sense of worth. As such, In Study 1 of Chapter 2, I assessed whether U.S American participants recruited through MTurk, exposed to a national identity threat through a vignette, would engage in spontaneous recall of mastery memories to bolster collective self-worth (N = 496). In Study 2, I manipulated identity threat as in Study 1, in addition to recall thus eliciting mastery versus routine memories as well as varied the order of recall to assess its buffering (recall occurs prior to the threat) versus corrective (recall occurs after threat) function in a 3x2x2 factorial between groups experimental design. Here I evaluated whether those under identity relevant thereat instructed to engage in mastery recall as opposed to routine recall would have higher collective self-worth (N = 723). Results showed that when threat was identity-relevant, those who spontaneously recalled mastery autobiographical memories had higher collective self-esteem than those who did not. In Study 2, where participants were instructed to recall either mastery autobiographical memories or routine memories, when threat was identityrelevant, collective self-esteem was again higher for mastery recall compared to routine recall. This effect was moderated by national identification and self-esteem. A general, self-affirmative effect of autobiographical memories also emerged, regardless of threat relevance or recall content. Findings provided a first empirical demonstration that autobiographical recall can enhance self-affirmation in identity threat situations. Is mastery recall relative to value affirmation effective in mitigating stereotype threat in a sample of African Americans in the United States? Stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) has been postulated as a factor that contributes to lower mean averages on standardized tests (e.g., Aronson & Steele, 1995; Brown & Day, 2006) and the overall academic achievement gap observed among minority students and specifically African Americans in the United States (e.g., Taylor & Walton, 2011). The effects however extend beyond performance alone to psychological outcomes as sense of belonging, self-confidence, and overall wellbeing (Spencer, et al. 2016). One method that has been successfully used to mitigate these effects is self-affirmation (Garcia & Cohen, 2012; Liu et al., 2021). In my previous work, mastery recall affirmation was successful in buffering against detriments to collective self-esteem under social identity threat (Tavitian-Elmadjian et al., 2020) and given that writing about one’s values in self-affirmation interventions, requires autobiographical remembrance (Bluck et al., 2005), I tested this premise by eliciting mastery memories which can be categorized as directive memories (Bluck et al., 2005; Pillemer, 2003) as a means to self-affirm in the context of identity threat. Accordingly, in Chapter 3, in a 3x2 experimental between groups factorial design I randomly assigned African American participants recruited through TurkPrime (N = 327) to one of two threat conditions (verbal and reasoning ability test introduced as indicative of racial differences or introduced as an evaluation of psychological variables underlying solving of verbal puzzles) and three affirmation conditions (mastery recall affirmation, value affirmation or no affirmation conditions). I expected that participants exposed to stereotype threat with no opportunity to self-affirm (values or mastery memories) would have lower collective self-esteem, lower state self-esteem, higher evaluations of test bias, test difficulty and lower evaluation of own performance relative to the average American compared to those who self-affirm (values or mastery memories). Last, I expected participants to show performance detriments on items extracted from the GRE verbal when framed as indicative of ability versus a series of verbal puzzles. Contrary to my expectations, results did not support the efficacy of selfaffirmation, whether through values or mastery recall in mitigating negative effects of stereotype threat on collective self-esteem, or any of the remaining outcomes assessed. There was one main effect of threat that emerged, but in the opposite direction to my expectation such that participants who completed the GRE verbal items as diagnostic of ability had higher collective self-esteem compared to those who completed it as non-diagnostic of ability. Reactance – which emerges when individuals perceive a threat to their freedom in some way (Brehm, 1966) – may explain this finding. Similarly, and contrary to expectations, stereotype threat did not negatively impact performance on the verbal GRE. This particular finding is surprising and contrary to the literature where performance determents are observed when stereotype threat is present (Nadler & Clark, 2011; Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). While I address the findings in light of limitations relating to the study setting (online versus in person), order of selfaffirmation (after the threat), design (exclusion of domain identification as moderator), and sample composition (most were not students at the time of testing), I also discuss the alignment of my findings with the larger question of replicability in the science of psychology (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), referring to multiple recent examples where the effects of stereotype threat (e.g., Flore & Wicherts, 2015) as well as selfaffirmation (e.g, Lesick and Zell, 2021; Macchione & Sacco, 2023) did not emerge as consistently as once postulated. Is mastery recall affirmation equally effective in the non-Western context of Lebanon at the national and ethnic identity levels? Much of what is known in relation to group belonging and identity in general is derived from studies sampling participants from prototypical Western contexts (Henrich et al., 2010; Nielsen et al., 2017), or immigrants within a dominant majority context (e.g., Appel et al., 2015; McQueen & Klein, 2006; Nadler & Clark, 2011). Other non-Western, plural contexts with no clear majority group (e.g., Sari, et al., 2018), and how identities are employed in close proximity of different groups are examined to a lesser extent. In Chapter 4, I assess whether mastery recall affirmation can buffer against identity threat in the plural, non-Western context of Lebanon. In two studies I investigated how threats are negotiated at a national level (Study 1 - Lebanon) and an ethnic minority level (Study 2 – Armenians in Lebanon). In Study 1 (N = 289) I tested whether national identity threat and mastery recall affirmation will be effective among mainstream Lebanese in a 3x2x2 experimental between groups factorial design. I manipulated affirmation (mastery recall versus routine recall), recall order (before threat and after threat) and threat (identityrelevant, identity-irrelevant, and neutral), and employed collective self-esteem as an outcome measure. In Study 2 (N = 212), I examined whether mastery recall can be an effective means of threat management in a sample of Armenian Lebanese participants, a group where ethnic identity maintenance and the threat of assimilation are primary concerns (Panossian, 2002). I sought to execute a 3x2x2x2 experimental between groups factorial design manipulating threat, affirmation and threat order in the same manner as in Study 1, but with the addition of a threat source manipulation (ingroup versus outgroup). The primary outcomes were collective self-esteem and intention to engage with the outgroup. Results indicated that in a context characterized by a history of intergroup conflict, a superordinate national identity is non-salient. When investigating the content of memories of the Armenian group in Study 2, I found a hypersalient and chronically accessible ethnic identity, a pattern specific to Armenian Lebanese. I suggest that this hyper-salience is employed as a spontaneous identity management strategy by a minority group coping with constant continuity threat. Findings point to the importance of expanding the study of identity processes beyond the typically assessed Western contexts and in turn, situating them within their larger socio-political and historical contexts. How does the larger cultural context impact the experience of social identity threat and the efficacy of affirmation interventions? Examples of responses to social identity threat include outgroup derogation, outgroup identity rejection, and strengthened ingroup identification. It has also been demonstrated that these responses vary depending on the nature of the threat and the degree of domain identification (Branscombe, Ellemers, et al., 1999; Jasinskaja-Lahti et al., 2009). In situations of identity threat, reflecting upon an unthreatened valued aspect of the self, such as central values, competencies and roles, may act as a buffer against the negative effects of threats and reinforce a general sense of competence and worth (Cohen & Sherman, 2014; Sherman & Cohen, 2002). There are relatively few studies that examine how self-affirmation interventions work in a non-Western context where specifics like cultural value orientation (for example, familial self-affirmation; Cai et al., 2013), acculturation status (e.g., Armenians in Lebanon; Tavitian-Elmadjian et al., 2019), or lack of common ingroup identity (e.g., Lebanese youth; Tavitian-Elmadjian, et al., 2019) may introduce variations in responses to social identity threat and selfaffirmation interventions. In Chapter 5, I first go through how various groups might be more susceptible to identity threat and I then present various iterations of self-affirmation approaches that have been used to reduce the threat’s impacts. I also stress the significance of future research into the psychological mechanisms behind affirmation interventions (such as self-esteem maintenance and self-concept clarity). I highlight that it may be inaccurate to presume that individuated sources of information, used in self affirmation procedures, would be helpful in non-Western contexts where group values (Family, social category) may prove more effective (see, for example, Hoshino-Browne et al., 2005). Last, I point out that the majority of the affirmation literature assesses threat in a situation where a clearly defined majority—typically the national mainstream—is set against a minority group—typically one with a recent migration history. In these situations, the national group (language, laws, norms) is at the top of the hierarchy, while the minority group that is under threat is lower down (see, for example, Hagendoorn, 1995, on ethnic hierarchy). While hierarchies are relevant everywhere, the dynamics may be different, for example, in multicultural contexts as in Lebanon (see Tavitian et al., 2019; or Indonesia, see Sari et al., 2018), where a clear and dominant majority does not exist.