Social contagion of memory, also known as memory conformity, refers to the process by which an individual’s memory becomes aligned with the memories or suggestions of others. This alignment may occur consciously or unconsciously and can lead to shared but potentially inaccurate memories across a group. The work on this topic suggest that through social influence, false or altered memories can spread among people much like a rumor or a viral idea online.
Memory conformity is a memory error caused by a combination of social and cognitive factors. Social contamination of false memory can be seen in prominent social interactions, such as eyewitness testimony.
Memory Conformity: Group Influence on Recollection
The process of recalling memories is often viewed as an autonomous act. However, when individuals reminisce within a group setting, their memories can become intertwined and influenced by the collective.
Researchers studying the social contagion of memory have found that false memories can be implanted through social influence, underscoring the complexity of memory recall as both a personal and communal phenomenon.
Normative influence, first proposed in the 1955 Asch conformity studies, holds that in social contexts, people are more prone to make assertions they do not believe in order to comply with societal standards and acquire social approval.
For example, research has shown that persons who engage in social interactions following an event are more likely to shift their perception of the event to something other than what they experienced. In one study, 60% of participants reported findings they could not have seen.
A 2006 study investigated which aspects of discourse, specifically the order in which participants responded, influenced or predicted memory conformity. The study found that the first member to recall an aspect of their memory was resistant to influence, even when the recollection was challenged by another participant.
In contrast, the individual who was not the first to remark a detail was more likely to be influenced and later recall what the other person had observed, even if the memory account differed in detail from what they had witnessed. Researchers hypothesized that normative conformity caused changes in memory reports because people sought to appear to agree with those around them in order to have a smooth encounter and boost their chances of being liked.
Source Monitoring Influence
Source monitoring errors are another mechanism that underpins social contagion of memory. A source-monitoring error can result in an incorrect internal attribution of a memory (the assumption that a memory was formed from firsthand experience), when in fact that information had an external source.
When one piece of information or memory of an event has characteristics with another, it is possible that the information is confused and stored wrongly because there are insufficient variances to allow for a firm differentiation between the two. This can result in incorrect attributions when working with sources. For example, when two males were speaking on a previous occasion, it may be more difficult to remember which of them gave a specific piece of information than when one male and one female spoke.
Suggestions and opinions from others can have a significant impact on whether a memory error or source attribution happens. Social interactions can exacerbate source-monitoring errors, with several studies revealing that participants ascribed their recollection to an inaccurate source almost 50% of the time.
Real-life occurrences have presented examples of errors in source monitoring, particularly in criminal trials or terrorist activities. To demonstrate this, a study was conducted on an Israeli airliner that crashed in Amsterdam.
When asked where they had learned about the event, many people erroneously identified their source of knowledge. Despite the fact that the event was not filmed, most people claimed to have seen it on television. The brain most likely generated the incident visually using descriptions and anecdotes, leading the individual to believe it was witnessed on television.
Informational Influence
Information influence refers to a type of conformity in which people tend to repeat what someone else has said before because they rely on the other person to resolve uncertainty. People are more likely to conform if they believe their information source spent more time learning the content, had superior visual acuity, or displayed strong confidence in their judgment.
According to one study conducted in 2008, those with great power are more likely to influence others with low power. High-power persons are more likely to express themselves and lead talks, while lower-power individuals tend to follow and rely on the more confident one.
Another study looked at the impact on social contagion of memory when participants were required to discuss material that was excluded, added to, or contradicted previously encoded elements. This study discovered that people are more likely to be influenced when they meet a new item or detail in their memory, as opposed to omitted or contradicting manipulations.
Researchers speculated that the uncertainty and debate that occurred during trials surrounding the confirmation of additional information supplied by another person convinced them that they had missed specific details, most likely due to a lapse in attention, which ultimately led to the alteration of their memory reports. With the motive for participants to be correct in their reporting, informational impact was anticipated to have a role in the greater conformity observed in this experiment.
Implications for Legal Settings
The reliability of an eyewitness can significantly influence the outcomes of trials. Research demonstrates that alcohol consumption has a minimal effect on social contagion, indicating that the presence of alcohol alone does not significantly compromise eyewitness accuracy. However, when individuals discuss memories of a crime, they may unintentionally include misinformation into their recollections, leading to inaccuracies in testimony.
Misinformation can manifest through social interaction among eyewitnesses. Discussions after witnessing an event can lead to the incorporation of false details into an individual’s memory.
Warnings and source monitoring instructions have been shown to be inadequate in preventing this incorporation of erroneous information, which raises concerns about the contamination of eyewitness testimony and the potential for miscarriages of justice.
Effects in Everyday Life
False autobiographical recollections can develop over time. In a recent study, 43% of participants remembered a childhood incident they had never actually experienced.
These naturally arising autobiographical recollections can cover a wide time span, from recent experiences to childhood memories. These memories also have little perceptual detail, making them similar to real childhood experiences and hence more credible to the person.
First-born children are also more inclined than their later-born siblings to dominate a conversation and make compliance blunders. In a study by Selwyn Becker and colleagues, later-born children were more affected if they had reason to assume that the information presented to them was more reliable than the knowledge they already received. First-born children were generally unaffected by informational value, but were more influenced by their motivation to conform to or defy popular norms.
Memory conformity is especially important in today’s age of mass advertising. According to research, political campaigns and advertising can influence our willingness to trust the judgment of a group, as well as attempt to change our personal ideas.
These brain imaging experiments go on to show that conformity can be seen at the neurological level when an individual modifies his or her personal ideas in response to social influence (known as private conformity). The same research has revealed that people can openly conform by appearing to accept a group’s beliefs or decisions (public conformity), but not through internal conformity and the resulting brain changes.
Memory conformity is often studied in terms of its negative repercussions, such as witness memory distortion; nonetheless, memory conformity has some advantages. In fact, some psychologists believe that memory compliance has more beneficial benefits than negative ones.
When an individual is not confident in the information he or she alone possesses (high subjective uncertainty), turning to external sources for assistance usually has no greater chance of producing an erroneous memory report than keeping with the original, shaky recollection. When the stakes aren’t as high as in a criminal trial, other people can be a readily available and really beneficial resource for aiding memory recall.
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Last Updated on April 5, 2024