Our Little Stories: Telling More Than We Know

Autobiography at its finest (source)

Last week I wrote a blog post about one of the most famous psychological experiments EVER: The Milgram Obedience Experiment. That got me thinking, wouldn't it be neat to write posts about some of my favorite classic experiments. Which brings us all here.

Let's try something for a second: Why don't you think back on the story of your life. While you are thinking back, try to remember why you got to the job you did, the city you now live in, the neighborhood, the relationships, etc... Most likely you--and most people for that matter-- took a long winding road to where you are now. It's also likely that you can pinpoint a few critical decisions you made in the past that have really shaped who you are today, and what you did to get here. We often construct these life narratives and you can buy any number of them in bookstores near you (hint: they are in the "autobiography" section).

But how true are these narratives really? Do we really know the two or three critical points in our lives that changed everything and made us the people we are today? Psychological science says no, and here is why:

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