Reinforced self-affirmation and reinforced failure reduce susceptibility to misinformation
Keywords:
misinformation effect; reinforced self-affirmation; reinforced failure; eyewitness testimony; memory
Abstract
The main aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of reinforced self-affirmation and reinforced failure on the memory misinformation effect. The misinformation effect consists in the witness including some incorrect details into their testimony, stemming from sources other than the original event. In the reinforced self-affirmation procedure, participants first recall their greatest achievements in life and are afterwards given a memory task with positive feedback about their performance on it. In a series of previous experiments, reinforced self-affirmation proved to reduce vulnerability to misinformation. The same result was obtained in the present study. Reinforced failure is a procedure not studied before, consisting in the participants recalling their greatest failures in life, connected with negative feedback about performance on a memory task. It was hypothesized that reinforced failure would increase vulnerability to misinformation. The results pointed to the opposite tendency – participants in the reinforced failure group performed better than those in the misled control group. The reduction in susceptibility to misinformation was greater in the reinforced self-affirmation group than in the reinforced failure one. The results are discussed in terms of the possibility of constructing a method of immunizing people to the misinformation effect available in practice for a wide community of professionals dealing with interrogations.
References
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Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (in press). Przeciwdziałanie manipulacjom. In M. Gamian-Wilk, & D. Doliński (Eds.), Wokół psychomanipulacji. Warsaw: Academica SWPS/Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Szpitalak, M., Polczyk, R., & Cyganiewicz, A. (under review). Uodparnianie na wpływ społeczny: Wzmocniona autoafirmacja jako czynnik zmniejszający efektywność techniki „drzwi zatrzaśnięte przed nosem”.
Tousignant, J. P., Hall, D., & Loftus, E. F. (1986). Discrepancy detection and vulnerability to misleading post-event information. Memory & Cognition, 14, 329-338.
Van Bergen, S., Brands, I., Jelicic, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). Assessing trait memory distrust: Psychometric properties of the Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 15, 373-384.
Wells, G. L., Memon, A., & Penrod, S. D. (2006). Eyewitness evidence: Improving its probative value. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 45-75.
Wright, D. B. (1993). Misinformation and warnings in eyewitness testimony: A new testing procedure to differentiate explanations. Memory, 1, 153-166.
Wright, D. B., & Loftus, E. F. (1998). How misinformation alters memories. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 71, 155-164.
Zaragoza, M. S., & Lane, S. M. (1994). Source misattributions and the suggestibility of eyewitness memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 934-945.
Blank, H. (1998). Memory states and memory tasks: An integrative framework for eyewitness memory and suggestibility. Memory, 6, 481-529.
Carver, C , Blaney, P., & Scheier, M. (1979). Reassertion and giving up: The interactive role of self-directed attention and outcome expectancy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1859-1870.
Chambers, K. L., & Zaragoza, S. (2001). Intended and unintended effects of explicit warnings on eyewitness suggestibility: Evidence from source identification tests. Memory & Cognition, 29, 1120-1129.
Chandler, C. C. (1991). How memory for an event is influenced by related events: Interference in modified recognition tests. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 17, 115-125.
Cianci, A. M., Klein, H. J., & Seijts, G. H. (2010). The effects of negative feedback on tension and subsequent performance: The main and interactive effects of goal content and conscientiousness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 618-630.
Cohen, R. L., & Harnick, M. A. (1980). The susceptibility of child witnesses to suggestion. Law and Human Behavior, 4, 201-210.
Echterhoff, G., Hirst, W., & Hussy, W. (2005). How eyewitnesses resist misinformation: Social postwarnings and the monitoring of memory characteristics. Memory & Cognition, 33, 770-782.
Greene, E., Flynn, M. S., & Loftus, E. F. (1982). Inducing resistance to misleading information. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 21, 207-219.
Hertel, P. T., Cosden, M., & Johnson, P. J. (1980). Passage recall: Schema change and cognitive flexibility. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 133-140.
Holliday, R. E., & Albon, A. J. (2004). Minimising misinformation effects in young children with cognitive interview mnemonics. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 263-281.
Itsukushima, Y., Nishi, M., Maruyama, M., & Takahashi, M. (2006). The effect of presentation medium of post-event information: Impact of co-witness information. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 575-585.
Karns, T., Irvin, S., Suranic, S., & Rivardo, M. (2009). Collaborative recall reduces the effect of a misleading post event narrative. North American Journal of Psychology, 11, 17-28.
Kensinger, E. A., Garoff-Eaton, R. J., & Schacter, D. L. (2006). Memory for specific visual details can be enhanced by negative arousing content. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 99-112.
Kernis, M. H. (2003). High self-esteem: A differentiated perspective. In E. C. Chang, & L. J. Sanna (Eds.), Virtue, vice, and personality: The complexity of behavior (pp. 3-22). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.
Lindsay, D. S., & Johnson, M. K. (1989). The eyewitness suggestibility effect and memory for source. Memory & Cognition, 17, 349-358.
Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning, & Memory, 4, 19-31.
McCloskey, M., & Zaragoza, M. (1985). Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 114, 1-16.
Memon, A., Meissner, C. A., & Fraser, J. (2010). The cognitive interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 16, 340-372.
Memon, A., & Wright, D. B. (1999). The search for John Doe 2: Eyewitness testimony and the Oklahoma bombing. The Psychologist, 12, 292-295.
Moskowitz, G. B. (2009). Zrozumieć siebie i innych. Psychologia poznania społecznego. Gdańsk: Gdańskie Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.
Neuschatz, J. S., Payne, D. G., Lampinen, J. M., & Toglia, M. P. (2001). Assessing the effectiveness of warnings and the phenomenological characteristics of false memories. Memory, 9, 53-71.
Pezdek, K. (1977). Cross-modality semantic integration of sentence and picture memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 3, 515-524.
Polczyk, R. (2007). Mechanizmy efektu dezinformacji w kontekście zeznań świadka naocznego. Cracow: Wydawnictwo UJ.
Ross, M., Spencer, S., Blatz, C., & Restorick, E. (2008). Collaboration reduces the frequency of false memories in older and younger adults. Psychology and Aging, 23, 85-92.
Sedikides, C., & Green, J. D. (2000). On the self-protective nature of inconsistency – negativity management: Using the person memory paradigm to examine self-referent memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 906-922.
Szpitalak, M. (2012). Motywacyjne mechanizmy efektu dezinformacji. Cracow: Wydawnictwo UJ.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (2010). Warning against warnings: Alerted subjects may perform worse. The impact of misinformation, involvement and warning on eyewitness testimony. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 41, 105-112.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk. R. (2011). Zniekształcenia zeznań świadka naocznego – mechanizmy pamięciowe i niepamięciowe. Z Zagadnień Nauk Sądowych, 85, 40-49.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (2012a). Efekt wzmocnionej autoafirmacji w redukowaniu efektu dezinformacji. In D. Doliński, J. Maciuszek, & R. Polczyk (Eds.), Wokół wpływu społecznego (pp. 99-111). Cracow: Wydawnictwo UJ.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (2012b). Wpływ zaangażowania, zagrożenia Ja i dezinformacji na zniekształcenia raportów pamięciowych. Roczniki Psychologiczne, 15, 97-113.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (2012c). Efekt wzmocnionej autoafirmacji – wzrost odporności na dezinformację wskutek autoafirmacji wzmocnionej pozytywną informacją zwrotną. Studia Psychologiczne, 50, 63-75.
Szpitalak, M., & Polczyk, R. (in press). Przeciwdziałanie manipulacjom. In M. Gamian-Wilk, & D. Doliński (Eds.), Wokół psychomanipulacji. Warsaw: Academica SWPS/Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Szpitalak, M., Polczyk, R., & Cyganiewicz, A. (under review). Uodparnianie na wpływ społeczny: Wzmocniona autoafirmacja jako czynnik zmniejszający efektywność techniki „drzwi zatrzaśnięte przed nosem”.
Tousignant, J. P., Hall, D., & Loftus, E. F. (1986). Discrepancy detection and vulnerability to misleading post-event information. Memory & Cognition, 14, 329-338.
Van Bergen, S., Brands, I., Jelicic, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2010). Assessing trait memory distrust: Psychometric properties of the Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 15, 373-384.
Wells, G. L., Memon, A., & Penrod, S. D. (2006). Eyewitness evidence: Improving its probative value. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 45-75.
Wright, D. B. (1993). Misinformation and warnings in eyewitness testimony: A new testing procedure to differentiate explanations. Memory, 1, 153-166.
Wright, D. B., & Loftus, E. F. (1998). How misinformation alters memories. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 71, 155-164.
Zaragoza, M. S., & Lane, S. M. (1994). Source misattributions and the suggestibility of eyewitness memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 934-945.
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