Social 2.4

What are the two types of social memory?

Collective memory (shared)

Social memory (personal)

What is collective memory?

A type of memory that is shared by a group and of central importance to the social identity of the group’s members

What are some key features of collective memory?

The group can be small (friends) or large (nation)

The memory can be reinforced (national holidays) and evolve over time to meet changing identity and motivations of the group

Two types of collective memory: communicative (sustained through practice), cultural (sustained through tangible materials)

What are some more key features of collective memory (CM)?

CM serves a function that builds and maintains social identity and social representations

CM is not static- it evolves across time and space

CM can lead to biases in social settings

Two examples of the function of collective memory

Social Identity Theory

Derive parts of their identity from social groups they belong to

Strengthen group identity, pride and solidarity

Social Representation Theory

How understandings of the world are shared collectively within a group

Provides shared interpretations of history that shape present attitudes

What is social memory (personal)?

Memory of one’s own social experiences

Socially framed/ open to SI

Distinct from neural and biological explanations of memory

Memory suggestibility

Our memories can be influenced by suggestions and information received from others

Misinformation effect

Phenomenon of memory suggestibility, referred to as ‘the tendency for memory of an event to be altered by misleading post event information, resulting in false memories’ (Wiechert et al., 2025)

The misinformation paradigm

1. original event: participants witness an event

2. post-event information: participants receive either accurate or misleading information about the event

3. memory test: participants are tested on their memory of the original event

Our memory is malleable

Question phrasing influences answers: “smashed” gives higher speed estimates than “hit”

Linguistic cues can lead to recall of non-existent objects (e.g. broken glass)

Original event info and post-event info may merge into one memory, causing confusion about the information source

Conversational remembering

1. Revisiting social contagion

Information introduced by others can become incorporated into our own memories

2. Reinforcement of existing memories

Recalling information we know, or someone else recalling it, can strengthen our memory

3. Retrieval-induced forgetting

Selectively recalling certain information can make related, unmentioned information harder to remember later