Group cohesiveness as a predictor of false memories and collaborative inhibition

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to look at the effects of cohesiveness on false memory creation, social contagion and collaborative inhibition. 15 friend, 14 ad hoc and 14 nominal three person groups saw categorical word lists. Friend and ad hoc group members were subject to collaborative recall, while nominal group members recalled these words alone (control group). Later, all participants received recognition judgments together with remember/know judgments and confidence ratings. Members of friend groups filled out a cohesiveness scale in the end. The findings on collaborative inhibition was contrary to expectations, such that friends engaged in collaborative inhibition whereas ad hoc groups did not. Together with the within group variability differences it was concluded that, without the moderating variables, cohesiveness does not necessarily lead to productivity. The findings on social contagion were in the expected direction, such that friend groups engaged in social contagion while ad hoc groups did not. Interestingly, the R/K judgments and confidence ratings of friend groups showed that friend group members are less able to make clear distinctions between what they saw and did not see in the first phase of the experiment. Overall, these results showed that people who know one another can be influenced by the mistakes of others in their group and accept these mistakes as actual truths.