Open AccessMnemic Neglect for Behaviors Enacted by Members of One’s Nationality Group
Author(s) -
Bettina Zengel,
John J. Skowronski,
Tim Wildschut,
Constantine Sedikides
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social psychological and personality science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.276
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1948-5514
pISSN - 1948-5506
DOI - 10.1177/19485506211021245
Subject(s) - psychology , social psychology , trait , recall , group (periodic table) , neglect , phenomenon , nationality , ingroups and outgroups , identity (music) , social identity theory , social group , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , immigration , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , archaeology , quantum mechanics , psychiatry , computer science , acoustics , history , programming language
People exhibit impaired recall for highly self-threatening information that describes them, a phenomenon called the mnemic neglect effect (MNE). We hypothesized that the MNE extends to recall for information that highly threatens an individual’s important in-group identity. We tested our hypothesis in two experiments in which participants read behaviors depicted as enacted by either in-group members (Experiment 1 = American and Experiment 2 = British) or out-group members (Andorrans). Participants recalled identity-threatening behaviors poorly when enacted by in-group members but not when enacted by out-group members. Additional results evinced in-group favoritism in (1) evaluations of the two groups and (2) trait judgments made from the behaviors, but only on traits central to the self. Finally, mediational analyses suggested that the group-driven memory differences are plausibly due to the global between-group evaluation differences but not the perceived between-group trait judgment differences.