How others change our memories: The effect of exposure to anonymous opinions

Abstract

A number of studies have demonstrated the memory conformity effect: interactions and discussions with other people affect remembering and provoke errors in memory reports in the direction of the opinions of others. Nowadays, communication via online social networks, where people read and leave comments on different facts, is of particular importance. The present study focuses on how evaluations and comments provided by anonymous others affect the memory of one’s initial opinion. The research aims to clarify new specific conditions under which memory conformity may occur. We conducted a laboratory experiment. Participants had to evaluate the IQ of a person in a photo. Then, we made the participants believe that they would see the evaluations and comments of three anonymous participants who completed the same task previously. For some photos, we presented evaluations and comments that supported the participants’ initial opinion. For some other photos, we presented estimations and comments that were conflicting (i.e., opposite to the participants’ initial decision). Then, we tested the participants’ memories of the initial evaluations and compared them to the control condition with no comments and evaluations from others. The results demonstrated that conflicting opinions were a predictor of a memory change towards the values inserted in the comments of others, whereas congruent opinions were a predictor of the initial evaluations’ replication. These results suggest that memory conformity may be evoked indirectly, without real social interactions and social pressure and without information about the reliability of the sources