Memory conformity

Memory conformity, also known as social contagion of memory, refers to a situation in which one person's report of a memory influences another person's report of that same experience. This interference often occurs when individuals discuss what they saw or experienced, and can result in the memories of those involved being influenced by the report of another person. Research on memory conformity has revealed that such suggestibility has far reaching consequences, with important legal and social implications. It is one of many social influences on memory.

A major component of memory conformity is source monitoring (or source memory). Source monitoring refers to the process by which an individual determines where they learned certain information (friend, TV show, teacher etc.). A source-monitoring error can lead to an incorrect internal attribution of a memory (a belief that the memory was made from first-hand experience), when in reality that information had an external source (someone else relayed that material/memory). Studies have shown that social interaction can increase source-monitoring errors, with some studies showing that participants attributed their memory to an incorrect source approximately 50% of the time.

Three ways that contribute to memory conformity are: normative influences, information influences and memory distortion. Normative and informational influences on memory are both social influences that can lead to conformity (a modification of behavior in response to actual or imagined pressure from others). Social influence can have a strong impact on the retrieval process of memories. Potential social conformity may be affected by factors such as power and confidence (both in oneself and in the credibility of a collaborator). This influence can alter memories, making them partially or entirely false. Memory distortion, closely tied with the misinformation effect, describes an impairment in memory that surfaces after exposure to misleading information.

Memory conformity is prominent in situations involving social interaction, media broadcasting and eyewitness testimony.

A fairly recent example of memory conformity occurred in 2003 after the murder of former Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh. Immediately after the crime was committed, witnesses were put in a room together so they could not leave the scene of the crime until they were interviewed. The witnesses discussed the scene with each other while in the room, contrary to what they were told to do. The specific descriptions the witnesses gave about the perpetrator upon leaving the room were influenced by each other, causing the police to collect false information about the perpetrator while initially searching for him or her. The perpetrator, Mijailo Mijailovic, was caught on camera and did not match the descriptions that the eyewitnesses gave. Conclusions have been made that the cause of this false search was rooted in witnesses discussion of their accounts with one another, which led to co-witness influence.

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