Is forgetting an intentional act?

Solution Preview

Let's take a closer look at some of the research literature in intentional forgetting to help you answer this questions.

RESPONSE:

1. Is forgetting an intentional act? Explain why or why not.

Research findings are mixed, but most findings suggest that some forgetting is an intentional act. However, there is some research that challenges this cognitive view, as well as some constraints to intentional forgetting (e..g, emotional content).

For example, a review by Golding and Long takes a broad perspective on intentional forgetting. Golding and Long's review and research on intentional forgetting in social, legal, and clinical contexts address a large and more diverse body of literature. There is, however, a general consensus concerning findings and theory. In the social and legal domains, for example, the typical approach is to present participants with information, and then caution or instruct participants to ignore, discount, or disregard the information because it is incorrect, invalid, confidential, or inadmissible. This general procedure is more similar to the list method than the item method used in the cognitive paradigms. The efficacy of the instruction is usually evaluated by assessing the extent to which the to-be-ignored information influences judgments, attitudes, beliefs, or impressions. The findings challenge the cognitive view, as the finding that is reported quite frequently is that instructions to disregard or ignore information are very often unsuccessful. Indeed, in some cases such instructions can even backfire in that the to-be-discounted information can have a larger effect than when the information is presented without the ignore instruction. Such results appear to challenge the cognitive support of intentional forgetting (Hockley, 1998).

However, there has been some explanations for these differences. For, example, according to Hockley (1998), this difference in results might be more apparent than real. In support of this, he refers to the opinion of Bjork, who points out, social or legal judgments, evaluations, or impressions represent indirect rather than direct tests of memory for the to-be-ignored information. Indirect, or implicit, memory tests do not require participants to actively or consciously refer back to previous events, and can be more sensitive measures of memory for prior experience than direct tests, such as recall. Indeed, researchers in the cognitive domain have begun to include implicit tests of memory in their study of directed forgetting. The results that have so far emerged suggest that directed forgetting effects can be obtained for some implicit tests when the item method is used, but not when the list method is employed. The failure to find effects of directed forgetting ...