Mnemic neglect is a term used in social psychology to describe a pattern of selective forgetting in which certain autobiographical memories tend to be recalled more easily if they are consistent with positive self-concept. The mnemic neglect model stipulates that memory is self-protective if the information is negative, self-referent, and concerns central traits. Pinter, B., Green, J.D., Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A.P. (2011) Self-protective memory: Separation/integration as a mechanism for mnemic neglect. Social Cognition, 29 (5), 612-624.
Mnemic neglect model Experiments have been conducted to test for the specific conditions under which mnemic neglect occurs. A standard procedure has been used across several experiments to test for these conditions. In this procedure, participants are presented with a list of 32 behavioral traits. They are asked to either encode each trait as if it applied to them (i.e. "consider people describing you with these traits") or as if it applied to a stranger named Chris (i.e. "consider people describing Chris with these traits"). Several of these experiments have found that the first condition under which mnemic neglect occurs is that the traits must be negative. Feedback from others is less easily recalled when it is negative in nature than when it is positive. Second, the information must be self-referent. Sedikides and Green (2004) conducted a study using the standard procedure in which half of the participants were asked to consider feedback as if it applied to them and half were asked to consider the same feedback as if it applied to someone else. They found that negative feedback was recalled as frequently as positive feedback when the feedback was directed at another. However, when the feedback was directed at oneself, negative feedback was recalled less frequently than positive feedback. Third, the information must pertain to a central, rather than peripheral, self-conception. A central self-conception is a generally positive trait that is considered fixed and highly descriptive (i.e. trustworthy vs. untrustworthy). In contrast, a peripheral self-conception is considered only moderately descriptive, less positive, and less important (i.e. modest vs. immodest). Feedback that counteracts a central self-conception is recalled much less frequently than feedback that counteracts a peripheral self-conception. In fact, the recall for feedback on modifiable traits was unaffected by whether the feedback was positive or negative.Green, J.D., Pinter, B., & Sedikides, C. (2005). Mnemic neglect and self-threat: Trait modifiability moderates self-protection. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35 (2), 225-235.
Hypothesized mechanism Sedikides and Green (2004) offered a mechanism by which they believe mnemic neglect occurs. Self-referent information is processed in two stages. The first stage checks the information for compatibility with self-concept. Self-threatening information is confined to this stage because it is found to be incompatible with self-concept. During the second stage, self-flattering information is compared to similar episodic memories. The theory is that deeper processing occurs at the second stage, so information processed at this stage is recalled more easily.Sedikides, C., & Green, J.D. (2004). What I don’t recall can’t hurt me: Information negativity versus information inconsistency as determinants of memorial self-defense. Social Cognition, 22 (1), 4-29.
Although research has demonstrated a difference in recall between threatening and non-threatening information, there is no difference in recognition of threatening and non-threatening information.Wyer, R. S., Jr., Bodenhausen, G. V., & Srull, T.K. (1984). The cognitive representation of persons and groups and its effect on recall and recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 445-469. In other words, self-threatening information is recalled less easily than non-threatening information but it is recognized equally well, meaning that subjects can identify whether they received the information or not regardless of its connotations. However, in a free recall task, subjects show a memory bias for non-threatening information. To account for this difference, Pinter, Green, Sedikides, and Gregg (2011) modified the suggested mechanism behind mnemic neglect. They hypothesized that people compare incoming information to past experience. If the information is consistent with self-knowledge, then the information is integrated with this knowledge. If the information is inconsistent with self-knowledge, then it is processed separately. Therefore, self-threatening information is less easily recalled but just as easily recognized as non-threatening information because separate processing leads to fewer retrieval routes.
This mechanism was tested by Pinter and his colleagues experimentally. Half of the participants were prompted to incorporate the information they were given into their self-concept. They were instructed to find similarities between the information and their self-knowledge and determine reasons for why the information described them. This process was termed integration. The other half of the participants were prompted to separate the information from their self-concept. They were asked to identify differences between the information and their self-knowledge and determine reasons for why the information did not describe them. This process was termed separation. The first finding of the experiment was that recall for both positive and negative information was poorer for separation than for integration. However, recognition was the same between the two groups. The second finding was that self-protection is more important than self-enhancement. A greater effect was seen for attempting to integrate central negative information than for attempting to separate central positive information.
This mechanism has been challenged by those who believe that mnemic neglect is a product of expectancies rather than self-protection motives.Swann, W. B. Jr. (1983). Self-verification: Bringing social reality into harmony with the self. In Psychological perspectives on the self, 2, 33–66. In other words, negative information is not processed as deeply as positive information because it is incompatible with self-concept as opposed to simply unflattering. People do not recall a behavior describing them that indicates untrustworthiness not because they want to protect themselves but because this behavior is inconsistent with how they would actually behave. This alternative explanation accounts for the absence of memory bias in recalling information about a stranger (Chris). People have no expectancies about this stranger Chris, so positive and negative information are processed equally well.Newman, L.S., Nibert, J.A., & Winer, E.S. (2009). Mnemic neglect is not an artifact of expectancy: The moderating role of defensive pessimism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39 (3), 477-486
Newman, Nibert, and Winer (2009) emphasized ruling out the possibility that mnemic neglect occurs due to incompatibility with expectancies. It was suspected that mnemic neglect might be an issue of self-verification rather than self-protection or self-enhancement. Self-verification and self-protection are difficult concepts to separate because most people tend to think of themselves favorably.Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210. Green and Sedikides (2004) attempted to address this concern by conducting two experiments. In one experiment, the participants were pre-selected. Half viewed themselves positively on certain dimensions and half viewed themselves negatively. All participants had better recall for positive dimensions. In another experiment, a stranger Chris was described to participants before they read the behaviors. Chris was described as a superhuman, incredibly kind and trustworthy, in an attempt to establish expectancies about Chris. Other participants in the same study were asked to imagine the traits described a close friend whom the participants hold in high regard. In comparison to these two cases, recall for positive traits was still better when these traits were self-referent rather than directed at another.Green, J. D., & Sedikides, C. (2004). Retrieval selectivity in the processing of self-referent information: Testing the boundaries of selfprotection. Self and Identity, 3, 69–80.
Despite these findings, the mechanism was still challenged because the results were open to interpretation. Perhaps participants had more favorable expectancies for themselves than for others. Newman, Nibert, and Winer (2009) sought to test the expectancies possibility more directly. They hypothesized that participants who were more focused on testing information against their expectancies would have different recall biases than participants who were more likely to be focused on self-protection. Defensive pessimists were identified as people who are more likely to focus on expectancies. Defensive pessimists think extensively about possible future outcomes, both positive and negative. Their ultimate goal is to be prepared. They should still exhibit a preference for positive over negative information, but they are more likely to approach a situation with “Is this a reasonable thing to expect?” as opposed to “Will this make me feel bad about myself?” Thus, it was hypothesized that defensive pessimists would recall more favorable than unfavorable behaviors in both themselves and others when subjected to the standard test for mnemic neglect. The findings supported the hypothesis. Defensive pessimists showed a bias for the recall of positive information over negative information for both themselves and others, thereby offering further support to the hypothesized mechanism of mnemic neglect (i.e. mnemic neglect is based on self-protection rather than self-verification).
Evidence against hypothesized mechanism The recollection of autobiographical memories can trigger emotions. Research shows that the intensity of the emotion experienced at the time of the event decreases over time, such that the intensity of the emotion associated with the recollection of the event is less than the intensity of the emotion experienced during the event.Hartnett, J. L., & Skowronski, J. J. (2008). Tragic to hilarious: Why do some negative autobiographical memories become funny? Presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the MidwesternPsychological Association, Chicago, IL, May 2008. The fading affect bias is a phenomenon in which emotions associated with a negative event fade faster than emotions associated with a positive event.