The Effect of Attitude on the Recall of Personal Histories

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The Effect of Attitude on the Recall of Personal Histories It is believed that a person’s attitude influences their memory. Many researchers have conducted experiments on this hypothesis. It has been determine that attitude does have an effect on memory; however, there has been discrepancies in the research results to what extent am individual’s attitude has on recall of past behavior (Aronson, 2012, pp. 164-165). Research done in 1943 by Levine and Murphy indicated that people tend to remember information that supports their social attitude rather than information that does not (Aronson, 2012, pp. 165). Similarly, earlier research looked at the effect attitude had on behavior and memory and found a negative correlation among the two (Aronson, 2012). Moreover, subsequent research has not conclusively determined that a person’s attitude influences their memory. Aronson reminds us that there is still room for further research to determine exactly the extent to which attitudes effect memory (2012). Why did they do the study? The current research examines whether individual attitudes effect the recall of an individual’s personal histories (Aronson, 2012, p. 165). Moreover, a clearer description of the current research’s hypothesis is whether an individual’s attitude directly influences their memories of past behaviors (Aronson, 2012, p. 166). The decision to do this experiment was determined by the lack of research conducted on individual’s attitudes on their past behaviors (Aronson, 2012, p. 165). Being that there is not any known research evaluating recall on personal histories, assumptions where made for the reason why. Aronson suggested that there are at least three possible causes for the lack of research (2012... ... middle of paper ... ...r, when President Clinton was caught having an affair with his intern people were irate and disappointed. Still to this day people are still reacting to this event. This is an example how an event that caused an intense emotional reaction didn’t last as long or stay as intense as an event that caused a mild emotional reaction. References Aronson, J. & Aronson, E. (2012). Readings about the social animal (11th ed. pp. 164-186) New York, NY: Worth Cherry, K. (2013). Attitudes: How Attitudes Form, Change and Shape Our Behavior. About. Com Psychology. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/attitudes.htm Wilson, T. D. & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective Forecasting, Knowing what you want. Current Directions in Psychological Science. (Vol. 4. pp. 131-134.) American Psychological Society.

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