Abstract
Are retrospective judgments regarding the affect associated with personal experiences influenced by organismic and cognitive factors prevailing at the time such events are recalled? This experiment examined whether contrast and assimilation effects analogous to those obtained for social and perceptual judgments could be produced in memory judgments of affect. The contribution of two factors was assessed: current activation level and cognitive context. Memories of personal experiences were elicited by a prompt-word method (cf. Robinson, 1976). Activation level was assessed by a self-report measure (Thayer, 1967). Cognitive contexts biased toward highly affecting experiences or toward moderately affecting experiences were induced with special questionnaires. Nonevaluative features of personal memories (e.g., event age) were not affected by the judgment conditions. Judgments of affect intensity were shifted relative to a neutral baseline condition by the high-intensity cognitive context. The direction of judgmental shift was dependent upon activation level. Confidence rating indicated that subjects were not aware of the biasing effects of the recall conditions.
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Robinson, J.A. Context effects in retrospective judgments of personal experiences. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 17, 147–150 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333693
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333693