Habermas Tilmann, Köber Christin
a Department of Psychology , Goethe University Frankfurt , Frankfurt a.M , Germany.
Memory. 2015;23(5):664-74. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2014.920885. Epub 2014 Jun 9.
Personal identity depends on synchronic coherence and diachronic continuity of the self. Autobiographical remembering and autobiographical knowledge as well as the stability of bodily integrity, of social roles, of significant others and of physical and sociocultural environment have been suggested as supporting a pre-reflective sense of self-continuity. Stark biographical discontinuities or disruptions in these areas may destabilise the sense of self-continuity. To test the hypothesis that autobiographical reasoning in life narratives helps to compensate the effects of biographical discontinuities on the sense of self-continuity, life narratives of a lifespan sample with the ages of 16, 20, 24, 28, 44 and 69 (N = 150, 78 female) were investigated. Results confirm that if, and only if there have been biographical disruptions in the past four years, then autobiographical reasoning correlates positively with a sense of self-continuity. The findings contradict the thesis that mere remembering of past episodes is sufficient to maintain a sense of self-continuity under conditions of biographical change.
个人身份取决于自我的共时连贯性和历时连续性。自传性记忆和自传性知识，以及身体完整性、社会角色、重要他人以及物理和社会文化环境的稳定性，被认为有助于支持一种前反思性的自我连续性意识。这些领域中明显的传记性不连贯性或中断可能会破坏自我连续性意识。为了检验生活叙事中的自传性推理有助于补偿传记性不连贯性对自我连续性意识的影响这一假设，对年龄分别为16岁、20岁、24岁、28岁、44岁和69岁的寿命样本（N = 150，78名女性）的生活叙事进行了研究。结果证实，只有当过去四年中存在传记性中断时，自传性推理才与自我连续性意识呈正相关。这些发现与以下论点相矛盾，即仅仅回忆过去的事件就足以在传记性变化的情况下维持自我连续性意识。
