Empirical Evidence on Cultural Life Script: A Critical Outlook

Abstract

This article presents a systematic review of some empirical studies on the issue of cultural life scripts. Following thesystematic procedure and setting some inclusion and exclusion criteria, two review papers and six experimental papers on cultural life scripts have been selected for review. The selected papers were published in distinguishing journal of psychology during 2004 to 2015, except two experimental papers by Rubin and Berntsen (2002, 2003). Cultural life scripts provide an alternative explanation of the reminiscence bump of autobiographical memory. Life script favors transitional positive events than negative one. Life script account explains the difference between the temporal distribution of wordcued memories and highly important memories but it does not explain why the reminiscence bump in the temporal distribution of word-cued memories is located in thesecond decade. Further extensive research is needed to more elaborate the structure and concept of life scripts.