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Abstract Although reminiscence is a behavior common to all ages, research to date has been conducted only with older adults. This study sought to explore the phenomenon with adults of various ages with the anticipation that comparative information would lead to a better conceptualization of the behavior and its functions. It was hypothesized that there would be no difference in what adults reminisced about, why they reminisced, or how they reminisced with respect to age, sex, education, or socioeconomic status. A sample of 309 adults ranging in age from 18 to 90 were asked to complete a survey exploring various aspects of reminiscence. Analysis of variance and chi‐square were used to assess differences in reminiscent behavior across age, sex, education, and social class. There were no systematic differences with regard to education or social class. On several dimensions sex emerged as a more important variable than age, suggesting that age may not be as important a consideration in simple reminiscence as has been previously assumed.
Merriam et al. (Sat,) studied this question.