Abstract
The influence of emotionally valent material on directed forgetting was investigated using the list method. In Experiment 1, participants studied Lists 1 and 2, which consisted of positive, negative, and neutral words. Then, the participants were divided into three groups. One group received the forget instruction telling them to forget List 1 and remember List 2 (forget group). The second group received the remember instruction telling them to remember both Lists 1 and List 2 (remember group). The third group was instructed to read Lists 1 and 2 and to remember List 2 (control group). Next, all participants were asked to recall all the List words including those that they were instructed to forget. The results provided evidence for the directed forgetting effect. Participants in the forget group recalled fewer List 1 words and more List 2 words compared to the remember-group participants. The emotional valence of the material did not modulate the magnitude of this effect. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 2, using the same procedure, with the exception that neutral words were eliminated. The results suggest that people can intentionally forget emotionally valent information.
