Transcript Repression experimental stimulus slides

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singer
wounded
business
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murder
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honest
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book
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Emotional Influences on Memory
• Emotional input may help or hinder our
ability to recall events clearly
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– Repression – ‘deliberate’ forgetting to reduce
emotional pain
– Flashbulb memories – ‘photographic’ recall of
shocking & personally meaningful events
Repression
Conscious
The small amount of
mental activity we
know about.
pain
Unconscious.
Things we are
unaware and can not
become aware of.
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Preconscious
Things we could be
aware of if we wanted
or tried.
Levinger & Clark (1961)
•
PPs shown two intermixed wordlists
1. Negative emotional connotations
2. Neutral
Compared recall for the two types of
word
– What does the theory of repression suggest
should happen?
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•
Evaluation
• Some experimental support (e.g. Levinger
& Clark, 1961; Klein, 1972)
– Unreliable results
– Methodological flaws
– Difficult to validate
– Impossible to distinguish inability from
unwillingness to recall
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• Case study evidence (clinical & criminal
cases)
Evaluation
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• Some impressive isolated cases, but
evidence is lacking for repression as an
important process