ABSTRACT
Memory has become one of the central areas of research in social cognition. One important issue is whether the self provides the sort of elaborate structure that facilitates memory for personal events or for items (e.g., words) related to the self-structure. Another question of general concern is whether self-memory is similar to or different from other-memory (i.e., memory of events happening to others). The answers to these questions are important for other classic issues, such as the effect of the emotional tone of an event on recall for that event. Our diary methodology allows us to examine such important issues in a natural context using real events as the stimulus materials.
