Prolonged Grief, Autobiographical Memory, and Its Interaction With Value Orientations in China and Switzerland

As a psychopathological function of prolonged grief (PG) disorder, disruptions in autobiographical memory have been shown in bereaved individuals in terms of preferred access of loss-related memory and reduced specificity in non-loss-related memory. The present study examined these features in two distinct cultural groups. The cultural differences between these two groups were further investigated in the light of their personal value orientations. A sample of 30 Chinese and 30 Swiss bereaved parents who had lost their child completed the Autobiographical Memory Test and self-reported scales to assess the severity of PG and traditional versus modern value orientations. Consistent with previous studies, more severe PG was found to be associated with a greater proportion of loss-related memories and reduced specificity of non-loss memories in the combined sample, particularly in response to negative cues. These manifestations were observed in the Chinese sample as a whole (but more salient in participants with low traditional values), as well as in the Swiss participants with low traditional values. By contrast, Swiss bereaved parents with high traditional values showed deliberate grief avoidance, as more severe PG was associated with a smaller proportion of loss-related memory for negative cues but a greater proportion of specific non-loss-related memory. These findings indicate that although the same psychopathological memory retrieval process applies to bereaved parents from different cultural backgrounds, the manifestations of disruptions in autobiographical remembering are moderated by culture and personal value orientations.