Does a person selectively remember the good or the bad from their personal past? It depends on the recall target and the person’s favorability of self-views
Does a person selectively remember the good or the bad from their personal past? It depends on the recall target and the person’s favorability of self-views
In three studies, participants remembered real-life behaviours at Time 1 and attempted to recall them at Time 2. When the recall target was the self, a positivity bias emerged: self-positivity. In Study 3, self-positivity extended to an individual (target) who was liked by the participant, but did it not extend to a disliked target. For this latter target, a negativity bias emerged. For recall
targets that were participants’ acquaintances, self-positivity in recall was also eliminated in Studies 1 and 3, and a negativity bias in recall emerged in Study 2. Finally, in Study 2 (but not Study 3), the favourability of participants’ self-view predicted the magnitude of the self-positivity in self-recall, but it did not predict valence effects in other-recall. Taken together, the results indicate that the link between behaviour valence and recall is moderated by the recall target and the favourability of one’s self-view
Autobiographical memory, self, self-positivity, recall, positivity bias
934-944
Ritchie, Timothy D.
5e91c0e9-36e5-4912-8b50-3b5a9f1e709a
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Skowronski, John J.
793a6a8c-8eb1-44cb-9825-67f650886d23
10 February 2017
Ritchie, Timothy D.
5e91c0e9-36e5-4912-8b50-3b5a9f1e709a
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Skowronski, John J.
793a6a8c-8eb1-44cb-9825-67f650886d23
Ritchie, Timothy D., Sedikides, Constantine and Skowronski, John J.
(2017)
Does a person selectively remember the good or the bad from their personal past? It depends on the recall target and the person’s favorability of self-views.
Memory, 25 (8), .
(doi:10.1080/09658211.2016.1233984).
Abstract
In three studies, participants remembered real-life behaviours at Time 1 and attempted to recall them at Time 2. When the recall target was the self, a positivity bias emerged: self-positivity. In Study 3, self-positivity extended to an individual (target) who was liked by the participant, but did it not extend to a disliked target. For this latter target, a negativity bias emerged. For recall
targets that were participants’ acquaintances, self-positivity in recall was also eliminated in Studies 1 and 3, and a negativity bias in recall emerged in Study 2. Finally, in Study 2 (but not Study 3), the favourability of participants’ self-view predicted the magnitude of the self-positivity in self-recall, but it did not predict valence effects in other-recall. Taken together, the results indicate that the link between behaviour valence and recall is moderated by the recall target and the favourability of one’s self-view
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Ritchie et al., Memory
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Ritchie, Sedikides, & Skowronski, 2017
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 September 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 September 2016
Published date: 10 February 2017
Keywords:
Autobiographical memory, self, self-positivity, recall, positivity bias
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Local EPrints ID: 510524
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510524
ISSN: 0965-8211
PURE UUID: 956a293b-49bd-4070-af6b-78d7e18c9b02
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Date deposited: 13 Apr 2026 16:30
Last modified: 14 Apr 2026 01:36
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Author:
Timothy D. Ritchie
Author:
John J. Skowronski
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