Motivation and Memory

Barnard College, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Ten studies will offer several theoretical and methodological advances in the area of personality and memory. The studies will test the hypothesis that implicit and self-attributed motives differentially influence memory processes. Implicit motives are expected to lead to improved selective attention, encoding, and subsequent recall under conditions that engage the specific affective qualities of the motive. Self-attributed motives, on the other hand, are predicted to lead to improved selective attention, encoding and subsequent recall under conditions that activate self-conceptions and values related to the motive. Eight experiments will be the first series of studies to use standard cognitive memory paradigms to demonstrate the influence of personality motivation on memory. The experiments will show that standard cognitive memory tasks can be used successfully to differentially engage implicit and self-attributed motives such that motive-specific affect engages implicit motives to improve recall and explicit recall instructions or goals pertaining to self-attributes activate self-reported motives to improve recall. In these experiments, different encoding conditions and recall instructions are predicted to interact with personality motives to determine recall, both accuracy and speed. The last two studies employ a web-based daily diary methodology to demonstrate that the same motivational processes that influence memory in the lab are also evident in the everyday experiences of individuals with agentic and communal goals. [unreadable] [unreadable]