Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Jan;74(1):166-178. doi: 10.1177/1747021820948721. Epub 2020 Aug 21.
Extending the self-reference effect in memory to the level of social identity, previous research showed that processing information in reference to one's ingroup at encoding enhances memory for the information (i.e., the group-reference effect). Notably, recent work on the self-reference effect has shown that even simply co-presenting an item with self-relevant vs. other-relevant information (e.g., one's own or another person's name) at encoding can produce an "incidental" self-memory advantage in the absence of any task demand to evaluate the item's self-relevancy. In three experiments, the present study examined whether this incidental self-memory advantage extends to the level of social identity using newly created, minimal groups (Experiments 1 and 2) and pre-existing groups (Experiment 3; one's own or another study major). During encoding, participants judged the location of each target word in relation to a simultaneously presented cue (Ingroup-cue or Outgroup-cue in Experiments 1 and 3; Ingroup-cue, Outgroup-cue, or Neutral-cue in Experiment 2). Consistent across all experiments, a subsequent recognition test revealed a significant memory advantage for words that were presented with the Ingroup-cue. Crucially, this incidental ingroup-memory advantage was driven by ingroup-memory enhancement rather than outgroup-memory suppression relative to memory for words presented with the Neutral-cue (Experiment 2), and was positively correlated with self-reported levels of ingroup identification (i.e., self-investment to one's ingroup; Experiment 3). Taken together, the present findings provide novel evidence that mere incidental associations between one's ingroup and to-be-remembered items in a non-referential, non-evaluative encoding context can produce a memory advantage for the items.
将自我参照效应扩展到社会认同的层面，先前的研究表明，在编码时以自身所属群体为参照来处理信息会增强对信息的记忆（即群体参照效应）。值得注意的是，最近关于自我参照效应的研究表明，即使在编码时只是简单地将一个项目与自我相关的信息（例如，自己或他人的名字）同时呈现，也可以在没有任何评估项目自我相关性的任务要求的情况下产生“偶然”的自我记忆优势。在三项实验中，本研究使用新创建的最小群体（实验 1 和实验 2）和已存在的群体（实验 3；自己的或另一个研究专业）来检验这种偶然的自我记忆优势是否扩展到社会认同的层面。在编码过程中，参与者根据同时呈现的提示（实验 1 和 3 中的内群体提示或外群体提示；实验 2 中的内群体提示、外群体提示或中性提示）判断每个目标词的位置。所有实验都一致表明，在随后的识别测试中，呈现内群体提示的单词的记忆优势显著。至关重要的是，这种偶然的内群体记忆优势是由内群体记忆增强而不是外群体记忆抑制驱动的，与呈现中性提示的单词相比（实验 2），并且与自我报告的内群体认同水平呈正相关（即，对自己内群体的自我投入；实验 3）。综上所述，这些发现提供了新的证据，表明在非参照、非评价的编码环境中，一个人的内群体和要记住的项目之间仅仅偶然的联想就可以为这些项目产生记忆优势。
