Can Ego Depletion and Post-event Discussion Change the Way We Remember a Crime?

Abstract

Ego depletion refers to a state of temporarily reduced self-regulatory capacity. Regulating emotional and cognitive responses to witnessing a violent or distressing event likely induces ego depletion. The current study investigated whether experimentally induced ego depletion would increase susceptibility to memory conformity. Participants viewed a mock crime video and then engaged in a depleting task or a non-depleting control task, before either discussing the video with a confederate who introduced accurate and misleading information or engaging in an individual recall task. Replicating the memory conformity effect, engaging in a post-event discussion reinforced memory for both accurate and misleading information. However, when depleted participants engaged in post-event discussion, they recalled less of the accurate (but the same amount of misleading) post-event information than non-depleted participants. This research suggests that depleted witnesses may suffer the negative consequences of discussion (remembering incorrect post-event information) without the possible benefit of remembering correct information.

Key words:

• co-witness discussion
• ego depletion
• eyewitness memory
• memory conformity
• misinformation effect
• self-control
• self-regulation

Note

Notes

1. When the analyses were run without the covariate, the results remained the same.