Rodriguez Dario N, Strange Deryn
a Department of Psychology , University of Dayton , Dayton , OH , USA.
Memory. 2015;23(2):203-12. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2014.881501. Epub 2014 Feb 7.
Memories serve as a "database" of the self and people often produce distorted memories that support their self-concepts. One, surprisingly untested, possibility is that cognitive dissonance may be one mechanism by which people may misremember their past. We tested this hypothesis using an induced-compliance paradigm: participants either chose or were forced to write a counterattitudinal essay supporting a tuition increase and were afforded the opportunity to reduce dissonance via attitude shift or denial of responsibility. They then reported their memories for the experimental instructions and their initial attitudes (assessed two days prior to the laboratory session). Participants who chose to write the essay exhibited the predicted attitude-shift effect, and were more likely to misremember their initial attitudes and the experimental instruction than those who were forced to write the essay. Overall, our results provide evidence that cognitive dissonance may yield memory distortion, filling a significant gap in the motivated cognition and memory literatures.
记忆充当自我的“数据库”，人们常常会产生歪曲的记忆来支撑他们的自我概念。一种令人惊讶的尚未得到验证的可能性是，认知失调可能是人们记错过去的一种机制。我们使用诱导依从范式来检验这一假设：参与者要么选择要么被迫撰写一篇支持学费上涨的反态度文章，并获得通过态度转变或否认责任来减少失调的机会。然后，他们报告了对实验指示和他们初始态度（在实验室环节前两天进行评估）的记忆。选择撰写文章的参与者表现出了预期的态度转变效应，并且比被迫撰写文章的参与者更有可能记错他们的初始态度和实验指示。总体而言，我们的结果提供了证据表明认知失调可能会导致记忆歪曲，填补了动机性认知和记忆文献中的一个重大空白。
