The researchers studied five countries - China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA - to see if there was any difference in the rate of flashbulb memories in collectivistic and individualistic cultures.

The sample was made up of 274 adults from five different countries. All participants were identified as "middle class."

First, the participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events occurring in their lifetime. The events had to have occurred at least one year ago.  The researchers then used this list of events to create a "memory questionnaire." They were asked five questions about how they learned about the event that mirrored the original questionnaire used by Brown & Kulik (1977). The questions were:

1. Where were you when you first learned of the event?
2. What time of day was it?
3. How did you learn about it?
4. What were you doing at the time that you learned about it?
5. Whom were you with?

They were then asked to answer questions about the importance of the event to them personally.  The questions included:

1. How nationally or internationally important was the event?
2. How personally important was the event?
3. How surprising was the event?
4. How many times have you talked about the event since it happened?

The questionnaire and instructions were constructed in English and then translated and back-translated into Mandarin Chinese, German, and Turkish by bilingual research assistants. For example, that means that after they were translated into Mandarin Chinese by one of the research assistants, a different native speaker would be given the questions and ask them to translate them back into English.  In this way, we can guarantee that the translation was not a confounding variable.

The researchers found that in a collectivistic culture like China, personal importance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting FBM, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences. Because focusing on the individual's own experiences is often de-emphasized in the Chinese context, there would be less rehearsal of the triggering event compared with participants from other cultures - and thus a lower chance of developing a FBM. However, it was found that national importance was equally linked to FBM formation across cultures.

• A representative of the culture administered the test and the questionnaires were given in the native languages of the participants.  This avoids interviewer effects.  It also meant that since they were responding in their native language - and the language in which these memories were mostly created - the participants were more likely to recall these memories.
• The study used back-translation to make sure that the translation of the questionnaires was not a confounding variable.  This increases the credibility of the study.
• There is the danger of the ecological fallacy - just because the participants come from the culture being studied, this does not mean that they necessarily share the traits of the culture's predominant dimensions - that is, just because I am American does not mean that I process flashbulb memories like other Americans.
• It is an etic approach to researching cultural differences. It is possible that cultural factors affected how information was self-reported.  It cannot be verified in this study whether those personal memories actually exist but were not reported.