National Identity Can be Comprised of More Than Pride: Evidence From Collective Memories of Americans and Germans

How does being a national of a country, steeped in its cultural context, affect our perception of that country's past? Despite demonstrations of "national narcissism" in prior work on collective memory, the present studies suggest that pride alone does not shape national identity. Considering collective memories for one's own and the other nation, American and German participants agreed more on which events nations should be ashamed of. When asked to generate events that shaped national identity, for both sets of participants, only a few of the most frequently nominated events were categorized as proud events. The rest were mixed or predominantly categorized as ashamed events or as evoking neither pride nor shame. Across studies, similar events were generated from the "self" versus "other" perspective, indicating that national collective memories can, to an extent, be understood by non-nationals. Variations in specificity, location, and timing of events were also examined. General Audience Summary People have the tendency to perceive their nation's past in a positive light just as they often perceive themselves. To better understand how we perceive the shared past of one's own and another nation, the current study explored memories of pride and shame generated by American and German participants about one's own and the other nation. Americans, consistent with prior studies on American culture, exhibit egocentrism by generating more events about themselves than did Germans about themselves. However, nationals from both countries show greater agreement on shameful than proud self events. When participants were explicitly asked to generate events that shaped the country's national identity, only few proud events were generated, while the rest of the events were ambiguous or categorized as events the country should be ashamed of or evoking neither pride nor shame. Across both studies, participants generated similar events and showed an understanding of the emotional tone of these events regardless of an insider or an outsider perspective. We discuss how both pride and shame in collective memories play an important role in forming and shaping a nation's identity and how memories can be held vicariously at the collective level, just as is true for individuals and their autobiographical memories. We suggest that national identities are shaped in similar ways to individual identities and therefore, national identities are not just shaped by pride in past actions.