User talk:Ahein21/sandbox

Memory conformity improvement summary

First I would add real life examples to the first paragraph. I think this would help to provide the reader with an enhanced understanding of memory conformity.

Next, I would improve the second paragraph by providing a better definition of the dyad group, the read group and the video group. Also, it is very confusing to try to understand the actions taken by each group.

Lastly, I think providing examples of the test results would assist in understanding what the author is trying to convey. (Ahein21 (talk) 23:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC))

Memory Conformity

Memory conformity refers to when people share information after a certain event, their memories become more similar to each others' than if they had not had this social interaction (Wright, Self & Justice, 2000). As an example, recent research (e.g., Gabbert, Memon, & Allen, 2003) has shown that people who have social interaction after a certain event is more likely to have their thoughts persuaded into something other than what they actually witnessed. In Gabbert, Memon, and Allen's experiment, 60% of their participants reported findings that they couldn't have possibly witnessed. This is part of research focusing on social influences on memory.

Discussing a memory can often lead to negative results. When discussing a memory with someone else, the story starts to become combined and the original story is now a mixture of two stories. For example there was a study on siblings and 75% of siblings have different memories of their childhood. Research also shows that if a story involves two or more people, if they know each other such as a family member, friend, neighbor, etc one person will believe the other person's story as more accurate and conform their story to match the other. A real life example would be while growing up one may remember going on a family vacation to the beach and enjoyed it, while the other sibling hated the vacation and has bad memories about the vacation. Years later after discussing why they did or did not like the vacation their stories have been combined what they actually remembered may just be what the other sibling has told them and they trust that the other sibling's story is more accurate than their own. --Lwilmes (talk) 21:41, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Memory conformity can be influenced by many things such as social pressure and media pressure. Peer pressure is people influencing other people to do certain things or believe a certain way. Peer pressure can be influenced by pretty much anyone, such as friends, family, and communities. While people know what is right and what is wrong, people tend to believe or behave to impress their peers. This same idea goes for peer pressure in memory conformity. As a human being everyone has their story, but are not always happy with just the truth. A person may add more or less details depending on the person’s interests or views. People tend to be always wanting approval and they feel the only way to complete this need is to change the story around to fit the person’s (they are telling the story to) needs or wants. After telling the story multiple times and adding or subtracting views and opinions, the original story seems to be completely gone. The person then tends to remember all the lies they had added instead of the actual truth of what really happened. For example, a teenage girl comes from a home where, both parents do not make much money. One day this same girl went to the mall just to window shop, but to impress her friends she told them she bought a brand new Coach purse from the Coach store. --Mweissenborn (talk) 02:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

A recent study in 2009 reevaluates the potency or strength of the memory conformity effect by having two groups of individuals in two Experiments. Half of the participants viewed the same video from a different camera angle. By having different camera angles two critical details could not be seen in one of the versions. Everyone was lead to believe they saw the same video. Participants were paired in dyad groups, one of which saw the video with the two critical details and one who did not. Some of the participants learned the details by discussion while filling out a questionnaire collaboratively, known as the dyad group. 71 percent of the questionnaires reported at least one of the critical non-witnessed details. Questionnaires that were not filled out collaboratively never reported non-witnessed details. Another group, called the read group, read a report written by the dyad group. The third group, called the both video group, saw both versions of the video.

In the first Experiment, these participants often reported non-witnessed details about the event. However, on a source-judgment test, where the details were from the actual source, rather than the video, the dyad group was not any more likely than the read or both-video groups to report non-witnessed details.

In the second Experiment, participants were discouraged from using the details that were remembered from the secondary source only. What did all of this prove? That post warning instructions substantially reduced the memory conformity effect, and the first group (dyad group) was not more likely than a read group to report witnessed details. By encouraging the read group, source monitoring at test can reduce the negative consequences of co-witness collaboration. (Ahein21 (talk) 03:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)) (

Confidence in a subject can also change a person’s memory. If people are in a group setting and one person seems to take control and seem very sure that what they remember is 100% accurate, other people believe them and this changes their memory of the event. If the listener believes the story is accurate they will put those ideas into their brain and then those ideas become the listener’s memory of the event as well. An example of this would be a group of high school seniors five years after their prom and trying to remember where they went to eat for dinner the night of prom. Although one may be pretty sure they ate at fancy restaurant, if one of the other people in the group shows more confidence that they all ate at friend’s house, everyone will believe that is what actually happened. From that point on the other group members will conform their memory to believe that they ate at a friend’s house the night of prom instead of a fancy restaurant. --Lwilmes (talk) 05:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)