Reconstructive Memory Research (OCR GCSE Psychology): Revision Note

Reconstructive memory core study: Braun, Ellis & Loftus (2002)

Background

• Advertisers often use autobiographical advertising — adverts that try to trigger memories and emotions from someone’s past

  • The idea is that if an advert reminds you of a happy childhood experience, you might feel more positive about the product or brand

• Braun et al. argued that nostalgic adverts act as memory cues, encouraging people to:

  • remember past experiences

  • connect positive feelings to the brand

  • and possibly even form false memories if the advert encourages them to imagine the event happening

• They suggested that if people imagine a childhood event shown in an advert, they may later believe that event actually happened

• Their study tested whether adverts could create false childhood memories of going to Disney World® and meeting cartoon characters

Experiment 1

Aim

• To investigate whether autobiographical advertising can influence or distort people’s childhood memories

Hypotheses

• If adverts become part of how memories are reconstructed, elements from the advert will appear in people’s “memories"

• If the advert encourages people to imagine a childhood event, this imagination process will make them believe the event really happened (called advertising inflation)

Method

• Type of study:

  • Laboratory experiment using an independent measures design

• Variables:

  • IV:

    • Whether participants saw a Disney™ autobiographical advert or a non-Disney control advert

  • DV:

    • Changes in participants’ scores on the Life Events Inventory, measuring belief in childhood events

• Sample:

  • 107 undergraduate students (64 female, 43 male) from a U.S. university

  • Participants received course credit for taking part

• Materials:

  • Life Events Inventory:

    • The questionnaire contained 20 childhood events, including the target event “met and shook hands with a favourite TV character at a theme resort”

  • Adverts

    • Disney™ advert (autobiographical – encouraged imagining being a child)

    • Positive control advert (did not encourage imagining childhood)

  • Questionnaires on:

    • attitudes towards the advert

    • how emotionally involved they felt in the advert

    • personal memories of Disney™

Procedure

• Week 1:

  • Participants were randomly assigned to the Disney™ group or the control group

  • All participants completed the Life Events Inventory and attitude questionnaires

  • They then completed distraction tasks to prevent demand characteristics

• Week 2:

  • Participants watched either the Disney™ autobiographical advert or the control advert

  • They were asked to imagine themselves in the scene and write how it made them feel

  • They rated the advert on the attitude and involvement questionnaires

  • They completed a distraction task

  • Then they completed the Life Events Inventory again to see if their beliefs about their childhood experiences had changed

Results

• 65% of Disney™ participants recalled or imagined Disney World® memories

• 74% said the advert helped them imagine the experience

• 63% now wanted to visit Disney World®

• 90% of the Disney™ group increased their belief they had “met and shaken hands with a favourite TV character” compared to 47% in the control group

• Inter-rater reliability for memory scoring was 0.83 (very strong)

Experiment 2

Aim

• To test whether adverts could create false memories of impossible events

Method

• Type of study:

  • Laboratory experiment using an independent measures design

• Variables:

  • IV:

    • The type of autobiographical advert (meeting Bugs Bunny, meeting Ariel, or a control advert)

  • DV:

    • Changes in participants’ beliefs and confidence that the childhood event happened

• Sample:

  • 167 psychology undergraduates from the USA (104 female, 63 male)

• Materials:

  • Three Disney™ adverts:

    • Meeting Bugs Bunny (impossible — Bugs Bunny is not a Disney™ character)

    • Meeting Ariel (impossible — Ariel did not exist when participants were children)

    • Control advert with factual Disney™ resort information

  • Modified Life Events Inventory using a 10-point confidence scale from “definitely did not happen” to “definitely did happen”

Procedure

• Same basic procedure as Experiment 1, except:

  • both groups saw a Disney™ advert, so researchers could test whether simply seeing the Disney™ name triggered childhood memories

Results

• Autobiographical adverts rated as more involving:

  • Bugs Bunny: 5.1

  • Ariel: 4.8

  • Control: 3.8

• Increase in belief that they had shaken hands with the characters:

  • Bugs Bunny: 78%

  • Ariel: 76%

  • Control: 62%

• Participants in the impossible conditions developed stronger false memories than the control group.

Conclusions (both experiments)

• Autobiographical adverts can shape and distort memory

• They can create false childhood memories, even for impossible things

• This supports Bartlett’s reconstructive memory theory:

  • Memory is not a perfect recording

  • It can be changed by suggestion, imagination, and expectations

• Advertising doesn’t just influence buying behaviour — it can influence how people remember their past

Criticisms

• Age bias:

  • Both studies used undergraduate students from the USA

  • This limits generalisability to other age groups who may respond differently to nostalgic advertising

• Ethical issues:

  • The study involved manipulating participants’ memories, potentially leading to psychological harm or false beliefs about their past experiences

• Lack of ecological validity:

  • Watching adverts in a lab is artificial

  • In everyday life, people don’t focus on adverts as intensely or follow instructions to imagine events

• Demand characteristics:

  • Although no evidence of guessing the aim was found, participants may still have tried to behave in a way they thought the researchers wanted