Investigating the relationship between generational identity and autobiographical memory in Bangladeshi older adults: A focus on the self-defining period

This thesis investigated autobiographical memories (AMs) of Bangladeshi older adults (55 to 90 years old), who attained adulthood during the 1960s Bengali nationalist movement and the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence. The participants recalled a disproportionately large number of memories from the period when they were 10 to 29 years old, which largely overlapped with the years of war and political struggles. The participants who joined the war exhibited stronger generational identity and recalled more memories from the war period compared to those who did not join the war. We suggest that as the war was self-defining for the entire Bangladeshi society, our participants showed preferential recall of AMs from this period.