THE EFFECTS OF CREDIBILITY ON THE SOCIAL CONTAGION OF MEMORY

Brian Boyle, Nihal Dayal, Andrew Fung, Kaitlyn Golden, Christopher Larsen, Leslie Nachbar, Liza Rubenstein, Sarah Schechter, Alexandra Shechtel, Paul Szerlip, Millicent Younger

Advisor: Dr. Patrick Dolan
Assistant: Jennifer Sissman

ABSTRACT

We investigated how memory is influenced by the presence of other people. While group recall has the potential to increase memory, it has also been shown to have negative effects on memory ("social contagion of memory"). Subjects in this experiment studied six photographs of household scenes and were asked to recall items from each scene in collaboration with a confederate. On six occasions, the confederate purposely recalled items not from a scene. On a follow-up individual memory test, subjects occasionally falsely recalled those items suggested by the confederate. We manipulated whether the confederate was a same-aged peer or an older figure of authority, and found that subjects were more likely to have false memories when paired with an authority figure. The implication is that people subconsciously put faith in the opinions of authority figures, even if the figures in question aren't necessarily experts.