Ross, M., & Wilson, A. E. (2001). From chump to champ: People’s appraisals of their earlier and present selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 572-584.
Welzer, H. (2005). Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi: The Holocaust in German Family Remembrance. American Jewish Committee. International Perspectives, 54, 1-31.
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I have never realized how manipulative we are to ourselves before. It seems rather human to trick other people to get what we want, but these readings indicate that we have a need to fool ourselves as well. Ross and Wilson’s studies present the ideas of the perception of the self through time and they get results that indicate young and middle-aged adults see themselves as more improved than when they were younger because they have distorted the younger versions of themselves. I don’t think it is remarkable that people feel themselves improved over time since we make so many mistakes and eventually fix what we see as “flaws.” Ross and Wilson don’t really have proof that we enhance on a previous self to make it seem worse than it was just to make our present selves look better, but our minds are surely sneaky if we do this. The article also says that at a certain age people stop seeing themselves as improving. Why would we make up the early part of our lives to make the middle seem better, but not dramatize the middle? These experiments show how superior we feel over others. Even when people rated their old selves worse than the new, they still rated themselves higher than others in their age-group. Where do we get this confidence? If it’s true that we purposely make our old selves seem less superior then this isn’t even confidence, but just a big deception to ourselves.
In “Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi” the loyalty of family members causes them to deconstruct historical events in order to “heroize” their grandparents. Unlike the previous article, the goal here is to disconnect bad events from the families and put a veil of seemingly heroic things to take their place. The families that were interviewed were convinced of their grandparents’ and parents’ goodness because “the desire to find moral integrity-or, even better, oppostional behavior on the part of the grandparents leads the offspring to ignore the actual content of the original tale.” Instead they bring up facts about their grandparents hiding the Jews from the Nazi’s and saving them by not telling on them. It’s comforting to know that you’ve come from a good family and “the desire for a good past is the wish of a society.” This is evident from all the disguises in high-school history books for example. If we desire such a good past then why as in the first article would we try to make our past less sufficient than it was? Are those people defending their relatives just to make themselves feel good?
Harald Welzer's article, "Grandpa Wasn't a Nazi" examines the heroization of family members through the examination of intergenerational conversation, particularly in comparison to textbook Holocaust history/commemoration. The results found that, over successive generations of German families, there is a tendency to heroize or justify one's family members, despite the reality of the acts committed by the family members. What is interesting about the study is the choice of the Holocaust as a historical context in which to study intergenerational conversations. The time period (and events surrounding the Holocaust) is unique in its, perhaps, vivid presence as a defining event in the global community. It seems as though such events, involving such haunting and incomprehensible atrocities, must yield a unique space in the formation of an individual's autobiographical memories, despite the person's own role, or even remote knowledge of the events. Perhaps these memories, including the secondhand memories passed down through generations, are reserved to a special class, with its own method of adaptation. That is, perhaps the only way we are able to move on and live with the knowledge of such a past is through the very modifications of memories that are evident in Welzer's findings. The Holocaust is recent in enough in history that younger generations' opinions are able to be shaped through the oral dialogue of eyewitness accounts, in addition to information taught in a formal setting. While reading the article, I wondered if the same results would be found in generations involved in the Vietnam War? The specifics of the Vietnam War are comparable enough the Holocaust, that I wonder if the study could include this generation, as well?
The way in which the successive generations viewed their grandparents (and the grandparents' involvement with Nazi/Holocaust events) seems to represent a clear divide in what one knows intellectually to be true, and what one is willing or capable to accept emotionally. The justification or distortion of family crimes may not necessarily be pure ignorance or denial, but, perhaps, an abstract form of forgiveness that allows the family to move forward. As noted in the article, it is repeated that the awareness of the actions of family members during the Holocaust is considered with great hesitation (based on knowledge of a totalitarianism regime) as many insisted on the lack of choice involved in dealing with the Nazi regime.
In forming our autobiographical memories, the intergenerational ties we have (and family loyalties) can be crucial to how we compose our sense of self. If the figures with which we identify so closely are compromised, then how can we reconcile this with what we feel we know to be true about ourselves? I wonder how the different generations view those family members involved in such a globally traumatic event? It seems as if the younger generations view the older generations as divided -- as a fixed 'nazi grandpa' and a post-Holocaust 'regular grandpa', whether realized or not. That is, the views of Nazism in the past is unchanging -- it is fixed in time (and memory) as an overwhelming negative. However, we are aware that (most) people are not fixed in time, and may change based on past experiences, over the course of a lifetime. The past 'Nazi grandpa' might be left behind in this frozen period of time, leaving the current grandpa as a separate, unrelated figure from the negative world, and individual, memory. Perhaps this kind of thinking can allow us to distinguish between the positive shared memories that define us, and the negative ones that confuse us, on every level.
Both “From Chump to Champ: People’s Appraisals of Their Earlier and Present Selves” and in “Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi” show how we are constantly trying to think of ourselves more positively now than in the past. In Wilson and Ross’s article they show that young and middle-aged adults rated themselves more favourably now than in the past, that they were happier now than they were in the past and how individuals disparage their earlier selves even when there has been no change, in order to make them feel better about themselves for example. They explain how people tend to evaluate their past selves in a way that makes them feel good about themselves and that people can keep their positive view of themselves by criticizing and/or by enhancing their former selves. For example, one could talk about how awkward they were in middle school, how they didn’t know how to dress or socialize and essentially criticize their former self because they know that now they’re not awkward, now they know how to dress themselves and socialize and that makes them feel good about themselves. One wouldn’t necessarily criticize their former self if that former self was still part of their present self and didn’t make them feel good about themselves or if no change had occurred.
Another interesting concept that Wilson and Ross brought up in their research was how when one is close to a successful person, it enhances their self-regard if the achievement deals with something that is unimportant to them or doesn’t threaten them. However, one’s self-regard is threatened when someone close to them outperforms them in something that is significant or important to them. For example, in a hypothetical situation there are two friends, one of whom is trying to be an actress and the other is a singer. The friend who wants to be an actress is nervous to go on an audition so she brings her singer friend along with her who she knows isn’t into acting. They both audition, the singer friend just doing it for her friend, but surprisingly the singer friend gets the job out of nowhere. The friend who wants to be the actress is devastated but in order to maintain her self-regard tries to minimize the magnitude of her friends’ achievement or de-emphasize the significance of the dimension on which the accomplishment occurred. She does this in order to not think about the fact that her friend probably got the job because she was a better actress than her, even though her friend had had no experience in the field. Ross and Wilson explain that these are some of the several psychological strategies one does to maintain their self-regard in a situation like this one. There are some people who manage to always be happy for others who achieve something great, even if it has to do with something that is important to them. However there is always a tinge of jealousy in these kinds of situations.
In “Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi” Welzer interviewed Western and Eastern German families to discover how they interpreted their knowledge of the history of the Holocaust and the Nazis in terms of their family history. The main theme throughout this study is that the younger Germans interviewed believed strongly that their parents or grandparents had not been involved in Nazism or were against their policies. Throughout all the studies the younger generations reinterpreted their grandparents’ stories in order to put them in a positive light and block out negative associations, which we tend to do with ones we love. The issue isn’t that young Germans aren’t informed of what happened to the Jews, they know exactly what happened and were taught about it in the classroom. The issue isn’t even that their grandparents were lying to them about what actually happened however it is that the story got more and more distorted over time throughout the generations, and the issue became that, as seen in all the studies, the younger generations kept repeating that their grandparents never knew about the concentration camps or knew that something as terrible as the holocaust was ever going to occur. They felt the need to position their parents or grandparents in a way that they were “untouched by the horror.” Even if their own parents or grandparents took part in Nazism, they couldn’t acknowledge it because they had come to believe that even though their parents or grandparents could have been directly involved in Nazism, they only did it because they needed a job or because everyone was doing it, and even if they didn’t have anything against the Jews, they couldn’t as an individual defend themselves so they just went along with it even though they were “against the system.” They do this in order to keep the moral integrity of their parents or grandparents, therefore they create this completely idealized vision that is very possibly incorrect and untrue.
In this case, all of the autobiographical memories of the parents or grandparents changed from generation to generation. When it comes to family, we never want to think badly about them or in this case believe that they were involved in Nazism, the holocaust or anything else relative to it. So in this case, they ignore the main issue, are basically in denial but don’t know it, and sincerely believe that their parents or grandparents were not directly involved during this horrific time in history. What I find unclear is that there is no way that all these younger generations were that clueless. It’s not as if they were told modified stories from their parents or grandparents about what happened, they knew exactly what happened yet will never acknowledge the truth because it is so closely related to their direct family. I wonder if they even have a small inclination or are able to perceive that maybe their parents or grandparents were a little less innocent than they thought.
In Wilson and Ross’s study, they hypothesized that people downplay and disparage their distant past as a way to maintain a positive self-image of their recent life choices. They go on to state that people regard their immediate past much more favorably than their distant past, and that people always consider themselves far more improved than others in the peer group. At first, this seems very plausible—if surveying adults in late middle age and older, it would make sense that they had the opportunity to gain maturity and wisdom through their youthful mistakes. However, the people surveyed were all university students, and the amount of time the researchers considered “distant past” was very negligible. In the first study, a mere twenty-six students with the average age of 19 were asked to reflect on their lives as sixteen-year-olds. In the third study, the period of time was even smaller, as only two months passed between interviews. However, despite the short period of the experiment and the low number of students participating, the third study was successfully able to illuminate why viewing the past negatively could help bolster someone’s confidence about their current situation. In this study, the university students were asked to rate themselves in areas such as self-confidence, social skills, academic ability, as well as negative traits such as narrow-mindedness and naiveté. This took place in the beginning of the school year in September, and the students were asked to reevaluate themselves at the end of the term, in November, considering both how they would currently answer the survey’s questions, and how they had initially answered them in September. The researchers believed that the stress of exams would make the beginning of the school year appear farther away than it actually was. According to their responses, the students were actually less happy with their lives than they were in September—but they didn’t remember it like that. By remembering the beginning of the term as worse than it had felt at the time, they were able to make themselves feel better about their current situation, although there was no actual improvement. This is just one of the coping mechanisms that can be used to reinterpret the past to better suit the current perception of self. Also, as was true in the other five studies conducted, the students continually rated themselves as more improved and more successful, in both past and present, than their peers.
“From Chump to Champ: People’s Appraisals of Their Earlier and Present Selves,” revealed the power of narrative in regards to memory, and also the tendency of one’s narrative to be constructed to fit one’s own needs or wants. This point was made throughout the article. One always seems to remember their past selves less fondly than they perceive their present selves, and the more temporal distance there is between one’s self and any given former self—or, the more perceived temporal distance—the less fondly the former self is regarded. The article seemed to generally suggests that people remember in such a manner in order to heighten their own self regard. If they remember their past less fondly, then their present self will seem improved. Often, however, they remember a recent past self fondly, probably because it can more easily be incorporated into a present self. It was also found that people generally rated themselves (both in past and present) as above the average of their peers.
It seems that such memories—without even realizing it—cater to the person's wants and needs. One will perceive, encode, and thus recall events in their lives, who they were, in whatever way makes them feel better about their present selves. This seems to further support the importance of memory to one’s identity. Past experiences, and thus all that’s left of them—memories—shape one’s identity, but people seem to also be able to shape their identities in a subjective way, by attaching feelings to their memories and about their memories at their liberty.
Core similarities can be found in the other article, “Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi: The Holocaust in German Family Remembrance.” The glorification of a German family member’s past, by their other family members, despite the part that the family member took in the holocaust, reiterates that people often remember what they want to remember, or they even reshape memories in order to fit their wants. I believe that these wants stem from the narrative idea of the self, what one wants their narrative to look like, and thus their identity to be. After reading these two articles the act of remembering seems more and more like the act of writing a piece of fiction, leaving some parts of reality out, incorporating some parts in, and changing some parts in order to create the desired story.
I wonder how subconscious or conscious this process is. When are experiences altered through memory? Does one alter them consciously, at their own liberty, or do they generally change subconsciously? Do they change over time, at the time of encoding, or way later when a current event causes one to reevaluate what they want their narrative to be?
I wasn’t surprised at the results of any of these experiments. The average replies, generally, seemed to mirror what I imagined my own reply to be. Even consciously I find myself recreating my past self in my head, in different ways, in order to make my present self more flattering. As a writer, I often treat my own life as though it is a story and myself narrating it and adjusting aspects of it in order to mentally make it as I want it to be. And I’m sure I do this subconsciously, too.
Both Ross and Wilson’s findings and Welzer’s study introduced interesting ideas about memory- both which I found relevant and relatable to my personal experiences as well. I’d like to address a few of the more intriguing aspects of these studies:
The Ross and Wilson piece I found to resonate truthfully with my own experiences. I have, multiple times, looked back on choices I made and ways I have acted in the past and felt as if it was a completely different self. In personal experience, I agree that much of this phenomenon has to do with the hindsight bias. The ‘selves’ I look back on with most animosity typically are thus because I acted a way that seems unbelievable compared to the knowledge I currently possess. However, at the time, I did not necessarily have all the information I needed to make an accurate judgment or choice. However, one aspect of the study I found interesting (and mildly amusing) was that it appears no matter at what time in our lives, we still think of our individual self on a much higher regard than others. I don’t necessarily agree with this, but I did find it interesting that even when people derogated their past selves, they never actually rated themselves negatively- just ‘less positive’ than their current selves. These findings are in line with the theory BEHIND the phenomenon, which says that people derogate their past selves in order to feel more positively about their current selves. If it is true that people generally think of their past selves as “not AS wonderful” as their current selves, this follows the theory that we generally hold in our minds a positive image of ourselves. No matter what hindsight we may have or no matter how we may see our past choices, we still never see ourselves in a negative light.
This point can easily transition into the Welzer study which discusses familial relationships and memories of Hitler’s Third Reich and the subsequent extermination of Jews. As Ross and Wilson explained, those ‘selves’ that our closer to us (whether in real time or temporal time) we try to avoid seeing in a negative light. If this is true of close ‘selves’, then it must also be true of other close relationships, such as family members. We simply do not want to accept that these close relationships could have made bad choices or committed such crimes in the past.
First, I do have some problems with the study. Ironic I should say this, as, being Jewish, the majority of my lineage was wiped out in the holocaust, but I do believe the study has a bias. The first part of this is that, I believe, their study was very narrow (the in-depth study), and when they examined a wider sampling, they returned data less aligned with the findings they desired. Also, I believe their sampling would be biased either way. They make it appear as if German’s were comprised almost completely with Nazi sympathizers, and that there were virtually no German’s who stood up to the Jews. I believe the truth is that many of these brave German’s that protected Jews are not alive today precisely for that reason, which may cause their sampling to be unbalanced.
Also, while I do not wish to defend the actions of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, I do not believe it fair that the researchers passed so much judgment on the children and grandchildren of Nazi supporters that were not alive for the war. I do not disagree with the findings of the study- absolutely children and grandchildren would twist the stories from horrifying to heroic- but I do disagree with the fact that these researchers expected the descendents to cast their family members in a negative light, and if not, deemed them anti-Semitic as well. I also agree with the “more education= more heroism” theory, only in a bit of a different way. It appears to me that the more one knows about the horrors of the Holocaust, the more they would feel it necessary to defend the actions of the ones they loved- essentially, “more education= more denial.”
Family histories are riddled with bias, and children/grandchildren have only the stories and memories of their elders to base their past off of. I think this is less an example of lingering anti-Semitism and more an example of what happens when factual information and familial tradition collide. I often wonder if I had a factual presentation of familiar family stories, how much it would differ from the tale I had been told.
In both From Chump to Champ, by Michael Ross and Anne E. Wilson, and Grandpa Wasn’t A Nazi, by Harald Welzer, survey participants are made to retrospectively evaluate their former selves in relation to their current selves as well as evaluate the questionably “heroic” actions of their ancestors during Nazi-Germany passed down in stories through successive generations in order to explore the benefits and consequences of criticizing past selves and embellishing familial pasts, blurring the lines between truth and reality to protect not only loved ones but one’s own established positive self-identity. Asking participants to rate their younger and current self on personal attributes on a scale from 1-11, Ross and Wilson illustrate that both young and middle-aged adults see themselves in a more positive light now than in the past, and that individuals will often cast aspersions on their earlier selves, even when no real change has occurred, in order to maintain a favorable view of their current selves. Even when evaluating former selves in comparison to peers of the same earlier age, individuals have a tendency to rate themselves as superior. Upon concluding this study, and throughout reading it, I was not at all particularly impressed or taken aback by the findings. Instilled in everyone from birth is the notion that we will continue to grow, improve and become wiser with each passing year until our bodies themselves start to deteriorate. And even as our organs start to fail us, our bones become weaker, and our sight and hearing evade us in the later years of life, we die with more insight and wisdom into our personal lives, the lives of others and the inner workings of the world than we could have ever imagined when we were first able to process a conscious thought.
In closing, Ross and Wilson suggest that disparaging former selves could potentially offset the consequences of habituation, or the diminishment of an emotional response resulting from a frequently repeated stimulus. Claiming that individual happiness is hard to maintain because a repeated positive experience increasingly loses its excitement and its ability to cause the body to release endorphins with each repetition, Ross and Wilson explain that just as occasionally experiencing a negative event should preempt habituation, occasionally looking at ones past and deploring ones former self should do the same. Thus, both authors conclude that the actual lived experience of negative events and outcomes “may be unnecessary” (Ross, Wilson; 583). Opposed to this final statement, I feel that without living through an actual negative experience or outcome, there would be no inferior self or unhappy past to retrospectively evaluate. Of course, with each passing year of our lives there is inevitably an inferior, or perhaps less wise, past-self because we are always learning and growing, but if so many crucial moral and ethical life lessons often arise from unfavorable situations, where would society be without those negative experiences that shape our identity and teach us right from wrong? Personally speaking, although I am somewhat ashamed of the former self I was between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, as well as the many mistakes I made, I do not regret the choices I made, nor do I look at those years favorably. Instead of looking back at those years with distain, I acknowledge that my former self was not my best self, that many of my negative experiences during that time taught me responsibility and helped me become the better person that I am today.
Wilson and Ross’ From chump to champ (2001) has catalyzed much action lately within my mind regarding the topic of normativity. The idea that people tend to rate their traits as superior to their peers and superior to themselves at an earlier stage of life seems quite “normal”. Of course we do, we normally tend to gain more knowledge with age, we tend to develop more fully cognitively as an individual, we reflect and learn from wrong-doings, but the bold claims of universality here do not go unrecognized. Even with no self-improvement, the average adult will be more critical of his past and more likely to praise his current state, even when no change can be reported. This is a hopeful adult. One which may blithely go through life thinking he is superior to others and himself, even if sub-consciously.
Returning from a non-normative work environment, I could not help but wonder which of these young adults would ever consider their current selves the best versions of themselves. Close enough to childhood, adolescents nearing a college age would remember a time when disability, frustration and even hormone-induced states of wrath did not consume them. Would this period of life not be preferable? What would NOT be preferable to the confines of an institution? There is no disclaimer warning against these common digressions from the norm, and more often than not, I wonder about these individuals. Would the outcome be the same for those who do not fit the optimistic stereotype of the American? I cringe when reading the last paragraph of this study citing Brickman and Campbell (1971) who suggest that “perhaps the happiest adult is one who had a moderately unhappy childhood” (p. 293). This statement does not make a concurrent argument with their research and is, in my humble opinion, a completely oversimplified statement to the point of falsehood.
The implicit statement is not so different in Welzer’s Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi (2005). The idea in this piece related closely to the idea of improvement over time, yet the facilitator of this cumulative heroism would not so much be the self as the subsequent generations. I would hesitate to make a claim as Welzer does for a number of reasons (although I was glad to hear his vote for the resistance fighters as “role models”, as my grandmother was both of these). This particular study dives into a sensitive issue with many more historical dilemmas than psychological ones. The arguments for being pro-socialism in the late ’30s in Germany were relatively stronger than the alternative. I believe at the crux of Germany’s power during this time, some 8 million Nazis existed. I would find it hard to believe that this New York City sized population would all have strong ties to the mission, as opposed to minor or even larger opposition which could be overlooked for the sake of saving their asses. With the connotation today, people are wary. Scientifically, I do not necessarily see reason for his redundant final statement: “Whoever was guilty of the Holocaust, whoever committed the crimes in the extermination camps, the forced labor system, and the camps-one thing is clear to all German citizens: My grandpa wasn’t a Nazi” (p. 27). My question to Welzer is: “would yours be?”
Blog 2
For 2-9-09 Autobiographical Memory class
From Chump to Champ: People’s Appraisals of Their Earlier and Present Selves
“Apparently the current, extraordinary self appears less remarkable in retrospect” (Wilson, 572).
I find it important to mention the convenient sampling of the experiments in this study. Choosing college students definitely gave the study a bias of class and economic status. Students buy into an illusion of progression when they move up each year towards graduation. This makes it easier to think of one’s self as constantly improving with more knowledge and more life experience. If the experiment was administered on a group of people less fortunate and out of the insular system of academia they would probably have reasons as to why they may see their past selves as better than their current ones. They might have been forced to make harder decisions.
To an extent this study revealed some narcissism in the participants but I think that it said more about our culture than about each individual. In our culture we are encouraged to frame our life stories like an epic book or a conventional movie. We are the heroes and we journey along until we become changed and better by the end of a period of time. The interesting thing is that we tend to see our current selves as constantly at the end of a journey and look back on the way we were. There are all these self help books and mantras being thrown at us that attempt to get us to believe that in the past we were wrong but right now we are right. Whatever we interpret as right and wrong doesn’t seem to matter. Also our society still holds onto some of the old Victorian prudery, which makes us feel that when we were in puberty and experimenting with sex and masturbation this was naughty and now we are more sexually conservative and therefore more pure. People have the ability to see their past with “clear” hindsight. While we are experiencing things we sometimes look back and judge our pasts more harshly than we do our present. But the reverse is also true. We can paint our past as a prettier picture than it was and belittle our present. It is important to make the distinction between looking back at the good old days and looking back at us as individuals in that time of life.
Caveat: Participants may not have actually meant what they said. They may have been trying to please their experimenter.
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