Publicação
How social contexts affect the formation of false memories and the moderating role of prosocial tendencies
| Resumo: | The following study is an investigation of context dependency in the formation of false memories and test if a prosocial context favors the formation of false memories compared to a selfish context. Furthermore, the prosociality of each participant was used as a moderator variable. In this study, false memories are formed by previously disseminated misinformation within the setup, based on the misinformation paradigm (Loftus et al., 1978). A total of 45 participants is presented with a pre-coded text about pro-social or selfish behavior, then watch one of two slide shows, followed by 50 sentences which contain misinformation, and complete a final memory test. A pro-social context is expected to lead to more false memories than a selfish context, supporting previous findings of consistency with human beliefs and supporting the assumption that humans are pro-social by nature. Results show no significant main effect of condition in the creation of false memories. However, interaction with the moderator reveals unexpected trends, suggesting that context influenced the formation of false memories differently depending on participants' prosociality. Specifically, participants with high prosociality scores reported more false memories in the selfish condition than in the social condition β = 0.68, SE = 0.07, t(42) = 2.42, p = .02, 95% CI [0.03, 0.33], supporting Hess ‘findings on the negativity bias (Hess et al., 2013). This study provides an initial investigation into how social context shapes false memories. The results may suggest that negativity bias has a stronger influence on memory than the need to conform to prosocial beliefs (Bregman, 2020; Reicher & Haslam, 2006). To validate these findings, further research with larger samples and more effective manipulations is needed. |
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| Autores principais: | Manstein, Anna Mia |
| Assunto: | False memories Pro-social/selfish context Misinformation paradigm Consistency Memory creation |
| Ano: | 2025 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Ispa-Instituto Universitário |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório do Ispa - Instituto Universitário |
| Resumo: | The following study is an investigation of context dependency in the formation of false memories and test if a prosocial context favors the formation of false memories compared to a selfish context. Furthermore, the prosociality of each participant was used as a moderator variable. In this study, false memories are formed by previously disseminated misinformation within the setup, based on the misinformation paradigm (Loftus et al., 1978). A total of 45 participants is presented with a pre-coded text about pro-social or selfish behavior, then watch one of two slide shows, followed by 50 sentences which contain misinformation, and complete a final memory test. A pro-social context is expected to lead to more false memories than a selfish context, supporting previous findings of consistency with human beliefs and supporting the assumption that humans are pro-social by nature. Results show no significant main effect of condition in the creation of false memories. However, interaction with the moderator reveals unexpected trends, suggesting that context influenced the formation of false memories differently depending on participants' prosociality. Specifically, participants with high prosociality scores reported more false memories in the selfish condition than in the social condition β = 0.68, SE = 0.07, t(42) = 2.42, p = .02, 95% CI [0.03, 0.33], supporting Hess ‘findings on the negativity bias (Hess et al., 2013). This study provides an initial investigation into how social context shapes false memories. The results may suggest that negativity bias has a stronger influence on memory than the need to conform to prosocial beliefs (Bregman, 2020; Reicher & Haslam, 2006). To validate these findings, further research with larger samples and more effective manipulations is needed. |
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