A cross-national study across 11 countries (N=2306) aimed to investigate Flashbulb Memories (FBMs) for the first Covid-19 case. Participants had detailed memories of the date and others present when they heard the news and partially detailed memories of the place, activity, and news source. China had the highest FBM specificity. Hierarchical regressions demonstrated that age and subjective severity negatively predicted FBM specificity, whereas sex, pandemic impact expectedness, and rehearsal showed positive associations in the total sample. Subjective severity negatively affected FBM specificity in Turkey, whereas pandemic impact expectedness positively influenced FBM specificity in China and negatively in Denmark.

This study analyses the production and recall of future thoughts during the COVID-19 lockdown. The Valence (positive vs. negative) and the Event Type (personal vs. collective) thoughts were considered. Results show a Valence x Event Type interaction for production and recall data, indicating a positivity bias for personal and a negativity bias for collective future thinking. Older participants recalled more positive than negative statements (positivity effect), and showed a greater tendency to turn negative thoughts into more positive or neutral ones. These findings showed that positivity bias for episodic future thinking occur in even such complex situations as the pandemic.

This study examined the impact of the pandemic on collective memory and future forecasting across 10 countries, focusing on themes reported in spring 2021 and autumn 2022. Results revealed that COVID-19 dominated past and future thoughts early in the pandemic, but its prominence waned over time. In contrast, non-COVID political events increased, with war-related events more frequent in global contexts and environmental concerns in future-oriented events. Future events were initially perceived as less negative than past events, but this changed over time, particularly in global contexts. Findings highlight how collective memories evolve with the unique changes in socio-cultural landscapes.

When collective transitions define autobiographical periods, they often serve as temporal landmarks. This study investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic represents a collective transition. Participants recalled word-cued autobiographical memories and estimated their dates aloud. They also indicated whether each event was COVID-related and rated the pandemic’s transitional impact. We found that people frequently recalled COVID-related memories (19%) and referenced the pandemic 17.5% of the time when dating memories. Despite its global significance, the pandemic had a moderate transitional impact, unlike other collective transitions. These findings suggest that the pandemic marks a distinct autobiographical period, even without a strong transitional impact.