How does being a national of a country, steeped in its cultural context, affect our perception of that country's past? Despite demonstrations of “national narcissism” in prior work on collective memory, the present studies suggest that pride alone does not shape national identity. Considering collective memories for one's own and the other nation, American and German participants agreed more on which events nations should be ashamed of. When asked to generate events that shaped national identity, for both sets of participants, only a few of the most frequently nominated events were categorized as proud events. The rest were mixed or predominantly categorized as ashamed events or as evoking neither pride nor shame. Across studies, similar events were generated from the “self” versus “other” perspective, indicating that national collective memories can, to an extent, be understood by non-nationals. Variations in specificity, location, and timing of events were also examined.

作为一个国家的国民，沉浸在其文化背景中，将如何影响我们对这个国家过去的看法？尽管在有关集体记忆的先前工作中曾表现出“民族自恋”，但本研究表明，仅凭自豪感并不能塑造民族认同。考虑到对一个国家和另一个国家的集体记忆，美国和德国的参与者更多地同意了哪些国家应该为之感到羞耻。当被要求为两组参与者生成塑造国民身份的事件时，只有少数最频繁被提名的事件被归类为骄傲事件。其余的则被混合或主要归类为羞愧事件或既未引起骄傲也未引起羞耻的事件。在所有研究中，从“自我”与“其他”的角度都产生了类似的事件，表明在某种程度上非国民可以理解国家的集体记忆。还检查了事件的特异性，位置和时机的变化。