Abstract
People believe memory is a finite resource individuals allocate according to their priorities and concerns. We propose that this conception of memory leads people to infer interpersonal attitudes from acts of recall and forgetting. Studies 1 and 2 show people draw inferences about others’ attitudes from evidence that distinctive personal information has—or has not—been committed to memory, but tend to discount the significance of their own memory acts. Study 3 reveals people will, however, draw attitudinal inferences from their own memory acts when they cannot be dismissed as chance occurrences. Our final study goes beyond measuring inferences from memory acts and considers interpersonal reactions to them. Study 4 reveals people reciprocate being remembered with liking, except when they learn they occupy an inappropriately large piece of the target’s “mental real estate.”
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