Memory and Decision Processes in the Construction of Social Reality

Abstract

This study investigates the suggestion that when constructing social reality, a person weighs and balances information from different sources to determine the situational usefulness of a memory. This relatively automatic and unconscious mechanism is proposed as one of a number of conscious and unconscious mental processes influencing the construction of social reality. According to the proposed model, each remembered event is stored relatively automatically as a separate memory trace. In at least some situations, a person constructs a worldview in real time based on relevant memory traces. Information about the perceived source of the communication is one of the cues used to decide which memories are relevant. An experiment supports key elements of the model. Individual memory traces predicted a significant amount of the total variance in answers to worldview questions in two domains, independent of several measures of communication exposure. Information about the communication source appeared to be associated with event memories in both domains. Communication source seemed important in predicting worldview about crime.