What’s recalled depends on the nature of the recall procedure the case of mnemic neglect by Irakli Kavtaradze

Original Article

What’s Recalled Depends on the Nature of the Recall Procedure The Case of Mnemic Neglect This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Leonard S. Newman, Maxwell S. Sapolsky, Ying Tang, and Daria A. Bakina Syracuse University, NY, USA Abstract. According to the mnemic neglect model, people process non-threatening feedback more deeply than threatening feedback. Tests of the model rely on behavior recall as the primary dependent variable. Similar to other research programs in social psychology, little attention has been paid to determining the optimal recall procedure for testing the model and replicating its predicted findings. Four experiments reveal that the results of mnemic neglect studies are significantly affected by recall period length and how recalled behaviors are reported. A few basic principles (e.g., output interference, output primacy as an index of accessibility) can account for these findings. The lessons learned apply not just to mnemic neglect research, but to any investigation of social-cognitive processes utilizing free recall measures. Keywords: self-concept, psychological defense, memory

Sometimes, things that happen to people that they would rather not remember. Indeed, an Internet search for the phrase ‘‘I want to forget what happened’’ will reliably yield tens of thousands of hits. Among those will be the ‘‘I Want to Forget’’ website, where people are invited to describe the specific thoughts, feelings, and experiences they would rather not remember (e.g., ‘‘I want to forget every mean thing said to me’’). Self-protective memory (along with related concepts such as motivated forgetting, selective memory, and repression) is one of experimental psychology’s oldest and most contentious topics (Erdelyi, 2006; Holmes, 1990; Loftus, 1993). It is also notoriously difficult to investigate empirically. However, a procedure developed by Sedikides, Green, and colleagues (Sedikides & Green, 2004; Sedikides, Green, & Pinter, 2004) to study what they call the mnemic neglect effect provides a straightforward, well-controlled, and flexible technique to study the processes involved in preferentially forgetting threatening self-relevant information (as well as the constraints on those processes). The research potential of mnemic neglect depends on the reliability, interpretability, and strength of the recall data on which tests of the model depend, and on the replicability of the effects predicted by the model. The studies described here demonstrate that conclusions about mnemic neglect can vary significantly as a function of the precise procedures used to collect those recall data. Clarifying the conditions that best allow for the detection of mnemic neglect will, we hope, help researchers maximize the value of the recall data they collect when studying self-protective memory. More generally, the lessons learned from this program of research will be of value not just to researchers 2013 Hogrefe Publishing

interested in mnemic neglect, but to any investigators utilizing free recall measures to shed light on social-cognitive processes.

Mnemic Neglect According to the mnemic neglect model (Sedikides & Green, 2004; Sedikides et al., 2004), self-relevant information is processed in two stages. First, information is appraised to determine whether or not it is threatening/ unflattering. If so, processing terminates as soon as possible. But if the self-relevant information is flattering, a second more elaborative stage of processing commences. One implication of this model is that unflattering self-relevant information will be recalled more poorly than flattering information. The model is tested by presenting participants with a list of positive and negative behaviors (e.g., ‘‘You would follow through on a promise made to friends’’; ‘‘You would refuse to lend class notes to a friend who was ill’’) and either (1) claiming that the behaviors make up actual personality feedback, or (2) simply asking participants to imagine that the feedback is real. Control participants are told that the feedback pertains to another (hypothetical) person (e.g., ‘‘Chris would follow through on a promise made to friends’’). Participants read over the behaviors (typically at their own pace); they are not asked to memorize them. However, after an interval, they are asked to recall the behaviors. More precisely, participants are given booklets of blank pages, and are instructed to write down one recalled behavior on each page. Typically, participants Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102 DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000164

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

recall more favorable self-relevant than unfavorable selfrelevant feedback; that pattern, however, is not found for other-relevant (and thus less threatening) feedback. The fact that the recall advantage for self-relevant favorable behaviors over self-relevant unfavorable behaviors holds when participants are asked to merely imagine that they have received personality feedback renders less plausible an alternative interpretation of these findings: That participants are simply less willing to admit to the possibility of actually having undesirable characteristics. The results of these studies also do not seem to be artifacts of different behavioral expectancies for the self versus the average other person. Sedikides and Green (2004) found that the bias to recall favorable self-relevant information did not extend to either a fictional person who had previously been described in glowing terms or to close friends who were viewed by participants as positively as they viewed themselves. In a second study, the self-serving pattern of recall for behaviors related to kindness and trustworthiness was just as pronounced for participants who viewed themselves as relatively unkind and untrustworthy as it was for other participants. Thus, expectancies do not account for the pattern of recall. Newman, Nibert, and Winer (2009) conceptually replicated these findings by more directly statistically controlling for participants’ self- and other-related behavioral expectancies. Furthermore, in support of interpreting these findings as evidence of self-protection, the self-serving recall pattern is stronger when the behaviors in question are strongly diagnostic of traits (Green & Sedikides, 2004) and when they reflect traits that are relatively non-malleable (Green, Pinter, & Sedikides, 2005). Even more consistent is the finding that mnemic neglect is more in evidence when the feedback relates to traits that tend to be important to most people’s self-concepts (such as kindness or trustworthiness) than when it involves traits that are generally less important (such as how modest or accommodating/uncomplaining one is; see, among others, Green & Sedikides, 2004; Newman, Nibert, et al., 2009; Sedikides & Green, 2004). The former traits are termed ‘‘central’’ because they tend to be more central to people’s sense of self-worth (and associated with more extreme evaluations); the latter, in contrast, are termed ‘‘peripheral’’ traits. In a word, negative feedback relating to central traits is more threatening. But how robust and replicable are these findings? Recently, Saunders (2011) described three investigations in which dysphoria, as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II; Beck, 1996), was found to moderate mnemic neglect; specifically, dysphoric participants’ memory for self-threatening information was enhanced. In three follow-up studies, Saunders, Worth, and Fernandes (2012) identified a group of people for whom memory for selfthreatening information was especially poor: Those with a repressive coping style (Weinberger, 1990). These are interesting and important findings; but also notable was the fact that none of the six studies in the two papers was the expected significant overall difference between recall of favorable and unfavorable self-relevant behaviors found. Without individual difference data, the only analyses that could have been run would have produced findings inconSocial Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

sistent with mnemic neglect, and the subsequent null results would have been unpublishable. Thus, the pattern of the recall data in these studies was inconsistent in a crucial way with that reported in previous mnemic neglect studies. However, the precise procedure used by participants to report the behaviors they recalled was not specified in either the Saunders (2011) or the Saunders et al. (2012) paper. This is by no means unusual for studies in which recall data are collected. But the assumption arguably underlying this practice – that such methodological details are trivial – is rarely examined, and not necessarily valid.

Free and Cued Recall in Social Psychology Research In a wide range of investigations by social psychologists, the key dependent variable is the quantity and content of free or cued recall of previously presented information. A search of the PsycINFO database reveals that in a recent 10-year period (2003–2012), the word ‘‘recall’’ appeared in the abstracts of 130 papers published in just a half dozen of the highest impact journals in the field. That search, of course yields just a very conservative estimate of the prevalence of recall measures in research by social psychologists. Typically, the focus of these studies is not on recall per se. Instead, what participants can bring to mind is used to shed light on how they construed previously encountered people, behaviors, or other social stimuli, and/or how that information was organized in long-term memory. Uleman and his colleagues (Uleman, Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996) analyzed recalled behaviors to determine if and when personality traits are inferred spontaneously. Similarly, illusory correlation researchers (Hamilton & Gifford, 1976; Stroessner & Plaks, 2001) collected recall data to test hypotheses about the conditions that lead to stereotype formation. Students of person memory (Srull & Wyer, 1989) relied heavily on free and cued recall to develop models of how impressions and evaluations of the self and others are represented in memory. However, there are few if any guidelines to consult when deciding what precise recall procedure is most appropriate for a given study. Researchers must instead rely on precedent or intuition. For example, how much time should be provided to participants for recall? The methods sections of published experiments typically reveal that participants were given either a specific amount of time (5 min, 10 min, etc.) or else were simply asked to indicate when they did not believe that they would be able to remember anything more. Rarely if ever is an explicit rationale provided for the procedure adopted. Another decision that must be made is exactly how participants will report what they recall. One (relatively rare) option is verbal report (e.g., Newman, Uleman, & Lipsitt, 1988). More typically, when the procedure is clearly specified (e.g., Bargh & Thein, 1985; Hamilton, Dugan, & Trolier, 1985; McConnell, Sherman, & Hamilton, 1994; Moskowitz, 1993; Winter, Uleman, & 2013 Hogrefe Publishing

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

Cunniff, 1985; Wyer & Unverzagt, 1985), participants are provided with a lined sheet (or sheets) of paper and asked to fill in as many spaces as possible with the behaviors, traits, people, and other items they can recall. Experiments testing the mnemic neglect model have adopted a subtly different procedure. In published papers by Sedikides, Green, and colleagues, the recall period provided to participants is either 5 min long or unspecified. In addition, and as previously noted, the experimenters do not provide participants with a single lined sheet of paper on which to write down what they can recall. Instead, participants are given booklets of blank pages, and are instructed to write down one recalled behavior on each page, after which they turn the page before writing down another one on a new blank page.

Why Might the Subtle Details Matter? Self-relevant personality feedback, whether favorable or unfavorable, can generally be retrieved from memory; research utilizing recognition measures (Green, Sedikides, & Gregg, 2008) reveals that even when such feedback is forgotten, it is potentially recoverable. However, the most basic prediction of the mnemic neglect model is that negative behaviors will be less accessible and less readily brought to mind and recalled than positive ones. The effects of accessibility should be most apparent in the early stages of recall; indeed, accessibility has long been indexed and operationalized in terms of output primacy (Higgins, 1996; Higgins & King, 1981). After the first few minutes of recall, the extent to which variability in what (and how much) is remembered is a function of the enhanced accessibility of particular self-relevant behaviors (such as favorable ones) will decrease. Instead, as the memory search mode becomes increasingly effortful and exhaustive (Garcia-Marques & Hamilton, 1996; Garcia-Marques, Hamilton, & Maddox, 2002), variance in recall will be increasingly related to (1) people’s ability to self-generate effective recall cues to actively search through long-term memory and (2) their decisions about when to bring the search to an end (Raaijmakers & Shiffrin, 1981). In this research context, however, variability in such retrieval processes is not theoretically interesting. Furthermore, the differential accessibility of favorable and unfavorable self-relevant feedback is hypothesized to be due to how people reacted (cognitively, affectively, and motivationally) when the feedback was initially encountered. Patterns of recall are of interest only because they allow researchers to make inferences about those prior reactions. Contextual influences on memory at the time that recall is taking place, on the other hand, serve only to add noise to the recall data. But the probability of recall of a given piece of information at any given moment is inevitably affected by information previously recalled during an extended memory search period. In other words, participants in recall experiments are subject to output interference (Smith, D’Agostino, & Reid, 1970; Tulving & Arbuckle, 1966), the ‘‘interfering effect of recalling an item on other items yet to be recalled’’ (Lockhart, 2000, p. 50). 2013 Hogrefe Publishing

Output interference is greater for later-recalled items, and greater the more salient previously remembered items are during recall. If everything participants in mnemic neglect experiments can recall is recorded by them on the same page, output interference could be expected to be greater than if each new recalled behavior is written on a separate page (and thus less visually salient immediately after output). Indeed, although Newman, Nibert, et al., 2009, using a ‘‘same page’’ recall procedure, reported findings supportive of the mnemic neglect model, those findings were strongest (and in some cases, only statistically significant) when analyses were restricted to behaviors recalled in the first 2.5 min of a 5-min-long recall period (i.e., the early stages of recall). However, further evidence is needed to support the hypothesis that these procedural details can significantly affect the pattern of recall in mnemic neglect studies – and in turn, the replicability of those studies and the conclusions reached from them. The experiments described here utilize the procedure developed by Sedikides, Green, and colleagues but more systematically distinguish between early recall (the first two and a half minutes) and total recall (all 5 min) to provide stronger support for the importance of focusing primarily on the early-recalled (most accessible) behaviors when assessing mnemic neglect. In addition, the mode of recall – ‘‘same page’’ versus ‘‘separate pages’’ – also varied across the studies, to determine if the importance of length of recall period is moderated by mode of recall (or more to the point, by the salience of previously recalled behaviors).

Methods Because the procedures and materials for all four studies were so similar (see Figure 1), they will be described collectively before the presentation of the results.

Experiment 1 (Same Page) Experiment 1 was designed to reveal whether the bias to recall favorable self-relevant behaviors would be more pronounced for initially recalled behaviors than for behaviors recalled during a more extended period of time when participants reported what they could remember by writing the behaviors down on a single page. Participants One hundred twenty-five undergraduates from the University of Illinois at Chicago participated for course credit. Materials In line with much past research (e.g., Green & Sedikides, 2004; Green et al., 2005), participants received a 4-page Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

Figure 1. Basic experimental procedure for Experiments 1–4.

booklet listing 32 behaviors. Half were positive/flattering, and half were negative/unflattering (see Green & Sedikides’s, 2004, list of ‘‘diagnostic’’ behaviors). In approximately half of the booklets (N = 60), behavior descriptions were phrased so as to apply to the participant (e.g., ‘‘You would act in a condescending manner to other people’’); in the other half (N = 65), the behavior descriptions applied to another person (‘‘Chris would act . . .’’). Each page contained eight behaviors relating to a single trait dimension (i.e., the behaviors were blocked by trait dimension). Two of the trait dimensions were central/ important (kind-unkind and trustworthy-untrustworthy) and two were peripheral/unimportant (modest-conceited and uncomplaining-complaining). The order of the pages was randomized (to control for primacy and recency effects) and no more than two same-valenced behaviors appeared sequentially. Procedure Participants were run either individually or in groups of up to five. In the Self condition, they were asked to ‘‘imagine that this is a description of you. Think of the description as being based on actual knowledge of people who know you well. Think of the description as real.’’ Those in the Other condition were asked to imagine that the description applied to a person named ‘‘Chris.’’ Participants read through the behaviors at their own pace. When all were finished, they completed a twoand-a-half minute distracter task (listing Chicago street names), and then were unexpectedly asked to list as many behaviors as they could remember for 5 min. Two lined sheets were provided for this purpose. At the 2.5 min mark, though, they were asked to draw a line under the most recent behavior that they recalled and to continue writing down whatever they could remember below that line.

Participants Ninety-seven undergraduates from Syracuse University participated for course credit.

Materials and Procedure The Media Lab software package was used to present the behaviors one at a time on a computer screen. The same 32 behaviors used in Experiment 1 were presented. Approximately half (N = 48) of the participants read behaviors about themselves while the rest read behaviors that applied to ‘‘Chris.’’ Participants were run individually and told to read the behaviors at their own pace, use the keyboard to proceed from behavior to behavior, and to stop when the program requested that they do so. Otherwise, the procedure and instructions were the same as in Experiment 1, although a different distracter task was used (two mood measures, administered for purposes unrelated to the present report).

Experiment 3 (Different Pages/Booklet) Experiment 3 was designed to determine whether the results of Experiment 1 would be replicated when participants reported what they could remember by writing the behaviors down on separate pages.

Participants One hundred four undergraduates from Syracuse University participated for course credit. Fifty-two were run in the ‘‘Self’’ condition, and 52 were run in the ‘‘Chris’’ condition.

Materials and Procedure

Experiment 2 (Same Page) The purpose of Experiment 2 was to replicate the results of Experiment 1 using a different method of presentation for the behaviors.

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

The procedure was identical to that of Experiment 1 with three exceptions. The two-and-a-half minute distracter task involved listing Syracuse street names. In addition, rather than a lined sheet, participants were given a 32-page long

2013 Hogrefe Publishing

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

booklet of blank pages. They were told to ‘‘write down one behavior on each page of this booklet, and don’t look back after you turn each page.’’ During the recall period, at the 2.5 min mark, participants were asked to write ‘‘a big X’’ under the last behavior they recalled (or were in the process of writing down).

Experiment 4 (Both Same Pages and Different Pages) The purpose of Experiment 4 was to more directly compare the patterns of recall for the two different methods of soliciting recalled behaviors from participants.

Participants recalled more positive behaviors (M = 3.18, SD = 1.33) than negative behaviors (M = 2.65, SD = 1.33), and consistent with past research, many more central behaviors (M = 4.59, SD = 1.81) than peripheral ones (M = 1.23, SD = 1.23). More important, though, was that this main effect was qualified by the expected twoway Referent by Valence interaction, F(1, 123) = 4.01, p < .05, gp2 = .03. Participants recalled approximately equal numbers of positive (M = 3.23, SD = 1.46) and negative (M = 3.02, SD = 1.30) behaviors when the feedback applied to Chris. When the behaviors were self-descriptive, however, participants recalled more positive (M = 3.12, SD = 1.18) than negative (M = 2.25, SD = 1.26) behaviors. The difference in recall of positive and negative behaviors was significant only in the self condition, F(1, 123) = 13.66, p < .001, gp2 = .10.

Participants Eighty-six undergraduates from Syracuse University participated for course credit. (Two other participants, non-native English speakers who were unable to recall a single behavior, were not included in the analyses.) Materials and Procedure The procedure was identical to that of Experiment 1 with one exception. Approximately half (n = 46) of the participants recorded the behaviors they recalled with lined sheets, while the rest (n = 40) recorded the behaviors with a booklet. When more than one participant was run during a session, all were run using the same mode of recall.

Results Experiment 1 (Same Page) Two research assistants coded a subset (n = 41) of the participants’ recall protocols using a gist criterion. Agreement for the number of positive (r = .87) and negative (r = .83) behaviors recalled was deemed adequate. One assistant then coded all sentence recall, and those data were retained for analysis. A 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence: positive, negative) · 2 (Importance: central, peripheral) ANOVA involving all of the recalled behaviors revealed only main effects (to be explicated below) of Importance, F(1, 123) = 231.98, p < .001, gp2 = .65, and Referent, F(1, 123) = 6.88, p < .05, gp2 = .05. However, the Referent by Valence Interaction predicted by the mnemic neglect model was not statistically significant, F(1, 123) = 1.57, p = .21, gp2 = .01. Neither was the three-way interaction, F < .01, p > .9. A separate analysis, however, was restricted to recall within the first 2.5 min of the 5-min session (‘‘early recall’’). That analysis again revealed the main effects of Valence, F(1, 123) = 11.07, p < .005, gp2 = .08, and Importance, F(1, 123) = 239.58, p < .001, gp2 = .66. 2013 Hogrefe Publishing

Experiment 2 (Same Page) The second author and a research assistant coded recall for a subset (n = 20) of the participants; agreement for the number of positive and negative behaviors recalled was deemed sufficient (both r’s > .9). The second author then coded all sentence recall, and those data were retained for analysis. A 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Importance) ANOVA using all recall data revealed main effects of Behavior Valence, F(1, 95) = 16.42, p < .001, gp2 = .15, Importance, F(1, 95) = 131.82, p < .001, gp2 = .58, and Referent, F(1, 95) = 9.83, p < .01, gp2 = .09. Participants recalled more positive (M = 4.62, SD = 1.91) than negative behaviors (M = 3.72, SD = 1.93), and more central (M = 5.78, SD = 2.29) than peripheral behaviors (M = 2.56, SD = 1.89). In addition, recall of behaviors in the Chris/other condition was greater (M = 9.31, SD = 3.42) than recall in the Self condition (M = 7.39, SD = 2.58). However, the two-way interaction between the two factors predicted by the Mnemic Neglect model was not found for the full recall period, F(1, 95) = 1.27, p = .26, gp2 = .01. An ANOVA limited to the first half of the recall period revealed the same main effects – Behavior Valence, F(1, 95) = 13.77, p < .001, gp2 = .13; Importance, F(1, 95) = 127.63, p < .001, gp2 = .57; Referent, F(1, 95) = 6.37, p < .05, gp2 = .06 – but also the expected two-way interaction between Behavior Valence and Referent, F(1, 95) = 6.54, p < .05, gp2 = .06 (but, as in Study 1, not a significant three-way interaction involving importance). Participants recalled a similar number of Chris’s positive (M = 3.38, SD = 1.33) and negative (M = 3.15, SD = 1.71) behaviors. In contrast, participants recalled more positive (M = 3.37, SD = 1.37) than negative (M = 2.12, SD = 1.15) self-relevant feedback, F(1, 95) = 19.84, p < .005, gp2 = .17. Experiments 1 and 2 therefore replicate Newman, Nibert, et al.’s, (2009) findings. When participants record all of the behaviors they can recall on the same sheet, the predictions made by the mnemic neglect model are more reliably supported when output primacy is taken into Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

account and only early-recalled behaviors are analyzed. These findings are consistent with the idea that the effects on recall of the differential processing of favorable and unfavorable self-relevant behaviors will be most apparent for the most cognitively accessible behaviors.

Experiment 3 (Different Pages/Booklet) Two research assistants coded participants’ recall protocols. Agreement was again high for both the number of positive (r = .93) and negative (r = .84) behaviors recalled, and the two coders’ recall scores were averaged for the analyses. In this study, a 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Importance) ANOVA using all recall data supported the predictions made by the mnemic neglect model when the moderating role of trait importance was taken into account. The 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Importance: central, peripheral) ANOVA yielded a significant three-way interaction, F(1, 102) = 3.82, p = .05, gp2 = .04. Consistent with past research, participants recalled more positive than negative self-relevant (but not other-relevant) behaviors when central traits were at issue, F(1, 102) = 8.95, p < .005, gp2 = .04, but that same bias was not found for other-relevant behaviors. The self-serving recall bias was also not found for the less important peripheral behaviors (see Table 1). In addition, as can be seen in Table 1, overall recall was again higher for favorable behaviors (M = 4.26, SD = 2.06) than for unfavorable ones (M = 3.79, SD = 1.71), F(1, 102) = 4.86, p < .05, gp2 = .05, and recall of central behaviors was again much higher than for peripheral behaviors (M = 5.40, SD = 2.43, vs. M = 2.65, SD = 1.99), F(1, 102) = 76.89, p < .001, gp2 = .43. In this case, however (when a booklet was used for recall), it was the analysis focusing only on early recall that failed to yield the hypothesized findings: The corresponding three-way interaction failed to reach significance, F(1, 102) = 1.84, p = .18, gp2 = .02, and the two-way interaction between Behavior Valence and Referent did not even approach significance, F(1, 102) = 1.03, p = .31, gp2 = .01.

Experiment 4 (Both Same Pages and Different Pages) The third author and a research assistant coded participants’ recall protocols. Agreement was again high for both the

number of positive (r = .93) and negative (r = .86) behaviors recalled, and the two coders’ recall scores were averaged for the analyses. When participants were presented with lined sheets for recall, the 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Importance) ANOVA using all recall data again failed to yield the predicted two-way interaction between Referent and Behavior Valence, F(1, 44) = 2.34, p = .13, gp2 = .05. But consistent with Experiments 1 and 2, an ANOVA limited to the first half of the recall period revealed the expected two-way interaction, F(1, 44) = 4.95, p < .05, gp2 = .10. Participants recalled a similar number of Chris’s positive (M = 3.04, SD = 1.12) and negative (M = 3.10, SD = 1.46) behaviors. In contrast, participants recalled more positive (M = 3.85, SD = 1.36) than negative (M = 2.72, SD = 1.42) self-relevant feedback, F(1, 44) = 8.10, p < .01, gp2 = .15. The three-way interaction was also significant, F(1, 44) = 4.92, p < .05, gp2 = .10. As in Study 3, participants recalled more positive than negative self-relevant (but not other-relevant) behaviors in the case of central traits, F(1, 44) = 12.05, p < .005, gp2 = .21, but that same bias was not found for other-relevant behaviors (see Table 2). Also consistent with Study 3, the self-serving recall bias was not found for peripheral behaviors. Finally, overall recall was again higher for favorable behaviors (M = 3.39, SD = 1.28) than for unfavorable ones (M = 2.93, SD = 1.44), F(1, 44) = 4.03, p = .05, gp2 = .08, and recall of central behaviors was much higher than for peripheral behaviors (M = 4.46 vs. M = 1.87), F(1, 44) = 35.36, p < .001, gp2 = .44. When participants were presented with booklets for recall, the ANOVA based on all recall data revealed no effects even approaching significance, all Fs (1, 38) < 1.5, all ps > .2, other than the main effect of Importance, F(1, 38) = 18.79, p < .001, gp2 = .33. As in all other investigations reported here, recall of central behaviors was much higher than for peripheral behaviors (M = 5.11 vs. M = 2.71). The parallel 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Importance) ANOVA for early recall revealed only the main effect of Importance, F(1, 38) = 26.85, p < .001, gp2 = .41 and a marginally significant effect of Behavior Valence, F(1, 38) = 3.76, p = .06, gp2 = .09. Participants recalled more positive (M = 3.14, SD = 1.64) than negative (M = 2.48, SD = 1.02) behaviors. Although the findings in this condition did not provide support for the main prediction of the mnemic neglect model, it should be noted that the sample size was small relative to other experiments in this area, and thus statistical

Table 1. Study 3, mean total behavior recall by referent, behavior valence (positive or negative), and importance (central or peripheral) Central Referent Self Chris

Peripheral

Positive

Negative

Positive

Negative

2.94 (1.60) 2.77 (1.41)

2.27 (1.48) 2.82 (1.34)

1.21 (1.09) 1.60 (1.48)

1.11 (1.12) 1.38 (1.14)

Note. Standard deviations are inside the parentheses. Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

2013 Hogrefe Publishing

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

Table 2. Study 4, single-page recall – mean early behavior recall by referent, behavior valence (positive or negative), and importance (central or peripheral) Central Referent Self Chris

Peripheral

Positive

Negative

Positive

Negative

2.80 (1.28) 2.13 (1.10)

1.78 (1.19) 2.23 (1.37)

1.05 (1.01) 0.90 (0.80)

0.95 (0.90) 0.87 (0.79)

Note. Standard deviations are inside the parentheses.

power was reduced.1 Nonetheless, with just a few more participants (46 vs. 40), use of the other (single page) recall procedure yielded the significant predicted interaction. And together, Experiments 3 and 4 suggest that providing participants with longer recall periods is less obviously problematic in the case of different-page recall than it is for samepage recall, consistent with the suggestion that this method for recording recalled behaviors will be less prone to output interference effects.

Discussion The procedures used to collect recall data in the experiments reported here were all within the range of those commonly used in social cognition studies in which recall is a dependent variable. Nonetheless, these studies indicate that whether or not the predictions about behavioral recall made by the mnemic neglect model will be supported depends on the precise nature of the recall procedure. The variability in the findings yielded by the different procedures (see Table 3 for a summary) is far from random, however; it can to a great extent be accounted for by a few well-known principles (e.g., accessibility and output interference). It seems clear that if the single-page procedure is used, analysis of recall data should be restricted to the initial behaviors recalled (although there is nothing magical, of course, about the 2.5 min cutoff point used in the studies described here). The hypothesized pattern of recall will be more pronounced and more reliably detected when participants are not provided with lengthy or open-ended recall periods (a finding replicated in yet another study by Newman, Eccleston, & Oikawa, 2009). The first few behaviors recalled are those that are most cognitively accessible (Higgins, 1996), and thus the most valid reflection of how deeply the different pieces of behavioral feedback were processed when they were initially presented to participants a few minutes earlier. After that point, output interference and other theory-irrelevant influences on recall seem to muddy the waters.2 Thus, researchers who provide participants with excessive or unconstrained recall periods 1 2

run the risk of concluding (erroneously) that they have failed to find support for the mnemic neglect model. In blunter terms, they will conclude that they failed to replicate past findings, their studies did not ‘‘work,’’ and that the work is not publishable. The length of the recall period seems less crucial when the different-page procedure is used – and the same should be true for a more recent variant of this procedure utilized by Pinter, Green, Sedikides, and Gregg (2011), in which participants typed the behaviors they could recall, ‘‘one recalled behavior per screen’’ (p. 616). Because participants begin each attempt to recall another behavior while facing nothing more than a blank page or screen, the previously recalled behaviors will be less likely to cause output interference. Thus, output interference can be expected to be less pronounced. Indeed, in Experiment 3, analysis of the total recall data from the full 5-min long recall period (but not the briefer recall period) yielded findings consistent with the predictions of the mnemic neglect model. One possible conclusion from this pattern of results is that the different-page procedure is less problematic (i.e., less sensitive to variations in the length of the recall period) and therefore preferable. However, we have also found that the sheer quantity of recall can be reduced when this method is used. Indeed, in the one study in which the two procedures were varied as a manipulated independent variable, there was a trend toward overall recall during the crucial early recall period being reduced when participants had to repeatedly turn pages to record the behaviors they recalled. For same-page participants, mean recall was 6.33 (SD = 1.99) behaviors; for other-page participants, it was 5.61 (SD = 1.69), a marginally significant difference (p = .068, gp2 = .04) as revealed by a 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Recall Procedures: Single page, Booklet) ANOVA. This difference might account for why we have found the different-page procedure to be a less powerful procedure for testing the mnemic neglect model. In the one study described here in which we manipulated the recall procedure, the predicted significant interaction was found only in the same-page condition. And in a recent investigation using the different-page method (Bakina & Newman, 2010), the predicted pattern of recall was found

For a similar reason, the omnibus 2 (Referent: self, other) · 2 (Behavior Valence) · 2 (Recall Procedures: Single page, Booklet) interaction failed to reach significance. An alternative explanation for the differences reported here between earlier and later recall is that the requirement that participants turn their attention to drawing a line to indicate the passage of 2.5 min disrupted the recall process and led to a shift in memory retrieval strategies. The distraction was very brief, however, and it called for a very simple action on the part of the participants. Nonetheless, future studies could control for this possibility by demarcating recall periods in a more unobtrusive way.

2013 Hogrefe Publishing

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

100

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

Table 3. Statistically significant interactions consistent with the predictions made by the mnemic neglect model, by study procedure and recall period Recall procedure Single page Experiment 1 (N = 125) Experiment 2 (N = 97) Experiment 4 (N = 46)

Booklet Experiment 3 (N = 104) Experiment 4 (N = 40)

Early recall

Full recall period

Referent · Valence Referent · Valence Referent · Valence; Referent · Valence · Importance

Neither Neither Neither

Neither Neither

Referent · Valence · Importance Neither

Notes. The Referent variable corresponds to whether the behaviors were self-relevant or other-relevant; the Valence variable distinguishes between behaviors that were positive (favorable) or negative (unfavorable); and the Importance variable distinguishes between behaviors that were central (important) or peripheral (unimportant).

only for a subset of participants, those low in the Need to Evaluate (Jarvis & Petty, 1996). Why should participants recall fewer behaviors overall when recording them in a booklet? Turning pages is not particularly onerous (although it is not unheard of for people to argue that an advantage of e-book readers is that they save one the trouble of physically turning pages in a book). A series of studies by Josephs, Giesler, and Silvera (1994), however, revealed that participants’ judgments about whether they have put in enough effort on a task to justify stopping (such as terminating efforts to recall more feedback) can be affected by superficial physical cues. For example, in Josephs et al.’s Study 3, participants chose to stop working on a proofreading task sooner when the sheets of paper used for the task were clipped to boxes – thus making the pile of completed work appear taller. A similar ‘‘judgment by quantity’’ phenomenon could lead participants to use the growing pile of booklet pages as a cue that the number of behaviors they recalled was sufficient, even when additional effort could allow them to recall even more. Overall, it may be the case that with the different-page procedure, longer recall periods are actually more appropriate, because shorter recall periods will not yield enough recall data (and as a result, insufficiently reliable estimates of self-relevant and other-relevant recall) to allow for analyses with sufficient statistical power. But our own studies have more consistently produced interpretable and statistically significant findings when the easier-to-administer same-page procedure is used and analyses are restricted to the earliest-recalled behaviors. And although not every one of our studies replicated the moderating role of trait importance, in none of them (and in no other studies of which we are aware) was mnemic neglect more pronounced for peripheral behaviors than for central behaviors.

Broader Implications An experimenter’s failure to replicate an effect casts doubt on its reliability and validity. Aronson, Ellsworth, Carlsmith, and Gonzales (1990) note two other possibilities. Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

One is ‘‘the incompetence of the . . . experimenter’’ (p. 68). The other is that ‘‘factors irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the basic hypothesis’’ are involved, and ‘‘the investigators are ignorant of relevant influential variables’’ (p. 66). Indeed, some of the aspects of particular experimental procedures that are crucial for their success are not readily apparent from published accounts, and might only come to one’s attention via hallway conversations at conferences and other forms of informal communication. It is for this reason that Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman has recently issued a call for more communication between laboratories so that psychologists will be in a better position to replicate each other’s work (Yong, 2012; see also Nosek, Spies, & Motyl, 2012). The findings reported in this paper indicate that when using free recall measures to test the mnemic neglect model of self-protective information processing, ‘‘factors irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the basic hypothesis’’ can play a major role in determining the quality of the data one collects (and could lead to unnecessary Type II errors). In addition, although our studies all involved variants on one specific experimental procedure, and all addressed a specific psychological phenomenon, the lessons learned from these studies should be applicable to other programs of research in social psychology utilizing recall data – including research on spontaneous trait inference, person memory, illusory correlations, and the role of stereotypes in social inference. For example, the signature finding in the person memory literature – that behaviors incongruent with a trait one has attributed to an individual are better recalled than congruent behaviors (Hastie & Kumar, 1979; Srull, 1981) – may be more easily detected by analyses focusing on earlier-recalled behaviors. The enhanced accessibility of expectancy-incongruent behaviors (resulting from efforts to reconcile them with the trait expectancy) will be more apparent at that stage of recall. Stangor and McMillan’s (1992) meta-analysis of the person memory literature, it should be noted, did not code for length of recall period. Nosek et al. (2012) noted that ‘‘Published reports of methodologies often lack sufficient detail to conduct a replication,’’ and that ‘‘there are many factors that could be important but go unmentioned’’ (p. 624). Unfortunately, 2013 Hogrefe Publishing

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

very often the devil is in the details; those unmentioned factors could have serious ramifications for the results of one’s investigations and for the replicability of one’s findings. As Nosek et al. go on to say, ‘‘reinvention based on another’s description of methods is a risk factor for introducing unintended differences between the original and replicated methodology’’ (p. 625). That indeed seems to be the case for free recall, and it is undoubtedly true for other measures and procedures used to shed light on complex socialpsychological processes in the laboratory.

References Aronson, E., Ellsworth, P. C., Carlsmith, J. M., & Gonzales, M. H. (1990). Methods of research in social psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Bakina, D. A., & Newman, L. S. (2010, January). Need to evaluate as a moderator of mnemic neglect, Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Las Vegas, NV. Bargh, J. A., & Thein, R. D. (1985). Individual construct accessibility, person memory, and the recall-judgment link: The case of information overload. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1129–1146. Beck, A. T. (1996). Beck depression inventory. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment. Erdelyi, M. (2006). The unified theory of repression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 499–511. Garcia-Marques, L., & Hamilton, D. L. (1996). Resolving the apparent discrepancy between the incongruency effect and the expectancy-based illusory correlation effect: The TRAP model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 845–860. Garcia-Marques, L., Hamilton, D. L., & Maddox, K. B. (2002). Exhaustive and heuristic retrieval processes in person cognition: Further tests of the TRAP model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 193–207. Green, J. D., Pinter, B., & Sedikides, C. (2005). Mnemic neglect and self-threat: Trait modifiability moderates selfprotection. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 225–235. Green, J. D., & Sedikides, C. (2004). Retrieval selectivity in the processing of self-relevant information: Testing the boundaries of self-protection. Self and Identity, 3, 69–80. Green, J. D., Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Forgotten but not gone: The recall and recognition of self-threatening memories. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 547–561. Hamilton, D. L., Dugan, P. M., & Trolier, T. K. (1985). The formation of stereotypic beliefs: Further evidence for distinctiveness-based illusory correlations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 5–17. Hamilton, D. L., & Gifford, R. K. (1976). Illusory correlation in interpersonal perception: A cognitive basis of stereotypic judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 392–407. Hastie, R., & Kumar, P. A. (1979). Person memory: Personality traits as organizing principles in memory for behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 25–38. Higgins, E. T. (1996). Knowledge activation: Accessibility, applicability, and salience. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 133–168). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

2013 Hogrefe Publishing

101

Higgins, E. T., & King, G. (1981). Accessibility of social constructs: Information processing consequences of individual and contextual variability. In N. Cantor & J. Kihlstrom (Eds.), Personality, cognition, and social interaction (pp. 69–121). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Holmes, D. S. (1990). The evidence for repression: An examination of sixty years of research. In J. L. Singer (Ed.), Repression and dissociation: Implications for personality theory, psychopathology, and health (pp. 85–102). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jarvis, W. G., & Petty, R. E. (1996). The need to evaluate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 172–194. Josephs, R. A., Giesler, R., & Silvera, D. H. (1994). Judgment by quantity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 21–32. Lockhart, R. S. (2000). Methods of memory research. In E. Tulving & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), The Oxford book of memory (pp. 45–57). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48, 518–537. McConnell, A. R., Sherman, S. J., & Hamilton, D. L. (1994). Illusory correlation in the perception of groups: An extension of the distinctiveness-based account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 414–429. Moskowitz, G. B. (1993). Individual differences in social categorization: The influence of personal need for structure on spontaneous trait inferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 132–142. Newman, L. S., Eccleston, C. P., & Oikawa, M. (2009, February). Ignoring biased feedback: Membership in a stigmatized group as a moderator of mnemic neglect, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Tampa, FL. Newman, L. S., Nibert, J., & Winer, E. S. (2009). Mnemic neglect is not an artifact of expectancy: The moderating role of defensive pessimism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 477–486. Newman, L. S., Uleman, J. S., & Lipsitt, N. (1988). Limits on the spontaneity of trait inference. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 18, 15–39. Nosek, B. A., Spies, J. R., & Motyl, M. (2012). Scientific utopia: II. Restructuring incentives and practices to promote truth over publishability. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 615–631. Pinter, B., Green, J. D., Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2011). Self-protective memory: Separation/integration as a mechanism for mnemic neglect. Social Cognition, 29, 612–624. Raaijmakers, J. G., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1981). Search of associative memory. Psychological Review, 88, 93–134. Saunders, J. (2011). Reversed mnemic neglect of self-threatening memories in dysphoria. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 854–867. Saunders, J., Worth, R., & Fernandes, M. (2012). Repressive coping style and mnemic neglect. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 3, 346–367. Sedikides, C., & Green, J. D. (2004). What I don’t recall can’t hurt me: Information negativity versus information inconsistency as determinants of memorial self-defense. Social Cognition, 22, 4–29. Sedikides, C., Green, J. D., & Pinter, B. (2004). Self-protective memory. In D. R. Beike, J. M. Lampinen, & D. A. Behrend (Eds.), The self and memory (pp. 161–179). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Smith, A. D., D’Agostino, P. R., & Reid, L. (1970). Output interference in long-term memory. Canadian Journal of Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie, 24, 85–89.

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

102

L. S. Newman et al.: Mnemic Neglect

Srull, T. K. (1981). Person memory: Some tests of associative storage and retrieval models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 7, 440–463. Srull, T. K., & Wyer, R. S. (1989). Person memory and judgment. Psychological Review, 96, 58–83. Stangor, C., & McMillan, D. (1992). Memory for expectancycongruent and expectancy-incongruent information: A review of the social and social developmental literatures. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 42–61. Stroessner, S. J., & Plaks, J. E. (2001). Illusory correlation and stereotype formation: Tracing the arc of research over a quarter century. In G. B. Moskowitz (Ed.), Cognitive social psychology: The Princeton symposium on the legacy and future of social cognition (pp. 247–259). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Tulving, E., & Arbuckle, T. Y. (1966). Input and output interference in short-term associative memory. Experimental Psychology, 72, 145–150. Uleman, J. S., Newman, L. S., & Moskowitz, G. B. (1996). People as spontaneous interpreters: Evidence and issues from spontaneous trait inference. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 28, pp. 211–279). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Weinberger, D. A. (1990). The construct validity of the repressive coping style. In J. L. Singer (Ed.), Repression and dissociation: Implications for personality, psychopathology, and health (pp. 337–386). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):93–102

Winter, L., Uleman, J. S., & Cunniff, C. (1985). How automatic are social judgments? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 904–917. Wyer, R. S., & Unverzagt, W. H. (1985). Effects of instructions to disregard information on its subsequent recall and use in making judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 533–549. Yong, E. (2012, October). Nobel laureate challenges psychologists to clean up their act. Nature, October 3, 2012. doi: 10.1038/nature.2012.11535

Received January 11, 2013 Revision received August 8, 2013 Accepted August 12, 2013 Published online November 15, 2013 Leonard S. Newman Psychology Department Syracuse University 430 Huntington Hall Syracuse NY 13244-2340 USA Tel. +1 315 443-4633 Fax +1 315 443-4085 E-mail lsnewman@syr.edu

2013 Hogrefe Publishing