Gender Differences in Self-Defining Memories: A Narrative Study of Significant Life Events Among Chinese College Students
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Self-defining memories (SDMs) are a type of autobiographical memory that holds important meaning for individuals. They are closely linked to our everyday life events and, to some extent, reflect the deep questions of “who we are” and “what we want.” In early studies on SDMs, numerous articles examined the gender differences exhibited by men and women in their memory narratives. However, they found different results, suggesting that, based on different research focuses and hypotheses, SDMs also present different gender differences. This further demonstrates that SDMs are a complex and multifaceted concept, and they are worth further study. Since most previous studies have been based on samples from Western countries, there has been limited discussion about East Asian countries. So, this study chose Chinese college students as the sample to explore the gender differences that SDMs might present in this “Special group.”