8/29 Person Memory Flashcards
What is person memory? 2 themes.
Impression formation and ask how that interacts with memory for behaviors exhibited by people who have +/- impression.
- Recall of expectancy-congruent vs. incongruent info
- Information-processing goal
Impression of person, then observing behavior that the person performs. Impact of behaviors on memory of behaviors.
Hastie & Kumar (1979)
Interested in effect of initial impressions on recall of behaviors performed by target. Participant asked to form impression of target and recall info.
First traits intended to create a clear impression: clever, smart, wise, etc.
Then read 16 behaviors by that person that are congruent (won chess team), incongruent (made same mistake three times), and some irrelevant (he eats food)
Number of C/Incong/Irrelevant manipulated
11/1/4 vs. 9/3/4 vs. 6/6/4
How many do you remember?
Remember Incongruent about the same when they are the same. Recall incongurent when it stands out “smart and YET” more often only when 1 item stands out. Behavioral observations inconsistent with impression, capture attention and you wonder how that could have happened.
11/1/4: more inconguent, but as the ratio evens, it evens out.
State of the Literature on person memory: Did every experiment agree with the incongruent findings?
similar findings were obtained in many experiments that followed
BUT! Other evidence showed an advanatge for expectancy-congruent info, specifically Zadny & Gerard (1974)
Zadny & Gerard (1974):
Skit of students registering for classes, drop 9 items (chem, psych, music), attempt to entroll in classes
Told the student’s major (chem, psych, music).
DV: recall dropped items.
Recall more items related to the major that they told them it was.
This one, unlike the one with the list of behaviors, showed expectancy congruent
Stangor & McMillan (1992): Meta analysis of literature on recall for congruent and incongruent info.
Was was the bottom line that they found?
Congruent variables? Incongruent ones?
Contextual variables influence perceiver’s motivation and opportunity to resolve incongruity
Congruent: Expectancy (told ahead of time) and longer delay.
More complex task/cog demands (no time to consider = congruent) HOWEVER, info processing goals: concerns about ACCURACY, incongruent advantage, because you need to remember stuff, and rememer that was weird.
Set size: single incongruent gets more attention than more. Ironic.
Groups: individual more incongruent expectancy, but groups more congruent
Hamilton, Katz, Leirer (1980)
Manipulation of processing goals using a…
1) impression set (just know what they are like) and
2) memory set (remember wording as much as you can)
16 behavioral predicates: 4 from each of 4 categories (athletic, social, intelligent, religious) presented in random order
Impression set actually remembered more statements.
Why? CLUSTERING. Intelligent, hm. what do intlligent people do…oh!
Hastie & Park (one of the readings?) Online vs. Memory Based processing
what made this different than what we just talked about?
Online- all info at once, memory based- get all info but at a later point asked for judgments
Now they must RETRIEVE to reach judgment, there was a time delay.
Form attitude on basis of message in front of them. Opinions about what you remember. Stronger correlation between attitudes and memory when impression is memory based than when formed online.
