Self-relevance and wishful thinking: facilitation and distortion in source monitoring

Mem Cognit. 2009 Jun;37(4):434-46. doi: 10.3758/MC.37.4.434.

Abstract

When making source attributions, people tend to attribute desirable statements to reliable sources and undesirable statements to unreliable sources, a phenomenon known as the wishful thinking effect (Gordon, Franklin, & Beck, 2005). In the present study, we examined the influence of wishful thinking on source monitoring for self-relevant information. On one hand, wishful thinking is expected, because self-relevant desires are presumably strong. However, self-relevance is known to confer a memory advantage and may thus provide protection from desire-based biases. In Experiment 1, source memory for self-relevant information was contrasted against source memory for information relevant to others and for neutral information. Results indicated that self-relevant information was affected by wishful thinking and was remembered more accurately than was other information. Experiment 2 showed that the magnitude of the self-relevant wishful thinking effect did not increase with a delay.

MeSH terms

  • Affect
  • Attention*
  • Choice Behavior
  • Conflict, Psychological
  • Culture*
  • Decision Making
  • Fantasy*
  • Humans
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Judgment*
  • Mental Recall*
  • Self Concept*
  • Social Perception
  • Thinking*