Attributional biases and the inability to ignore retracted information

Witnesses;Collective memory;Memory;False memory syndrome

Bivens, Seneca A.Chrobak, Quin ;

University of Wisconsin

关键词: Witnesses;    Collective memory;    Memory;    False memory syndrome;   

Others  :  https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/72915/Bivens%2c%20Seneca.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: University of Wisconsin

【 摘 要 】

The purpose of the study was to explore factors that result in one type of distortion inmemory. In particular, previous research has shown that people have a difficult timedisregarding causal information that has later been retracted (e.g., Johnson & Seifert,1994). The present investigation was designed to explore whether or not the nature of theexperienced event (whether it is personally relevant to a person or not) influences thistendency. Participants were presented with stories about an airplane crash that was eitherpersonally relevant to participants (i.e., the plane departed from Milwaukee airport) ornot personally relevant (i.e., the plane departed from Paris airport). Participants weregiven an initial cause for the airplane crash (engine malfunction), that was subsequentlydiscredited in one of two ways. In the Negation Only condition, participants simplylearned that the original cause was inaccurate. By contrast, in the Alternative condition,participants were also provided an alternative explanation for why the event occurred.Finally, participants were tested to see how much of their understanding of the eventswas influenced by the initial causal explanation. Results indicated that participantscontinued to rely on the initial causal explanation whether they were given a retraction ora retraction with an alternative explanation, which further supported previous research onthe continued influence effect. Contrary to expectations, there was no significant effectof personal relevance on the number of inferences made. However, when participantswere given a negation only, they were numerically more likely to make inferences basedon the original causal explanation when the story was personally relevant. These resultsare discussed in the context of previous research on the continued influence effect.