Abstract
The influence of self-reference and emotionally valent material on list-method directed forgetting was investigated. Participants studied Lists 1 and 2, both of which consisted of positive, negative, and neutral trait adjectives. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: self-reference judgment, social desirability judgment, and control (no specific judgment). Half of the participants in each condition received the forget instruction telling them to forget List 1 and to remember List 2 (Forget group). The other half received the remember instruction telling them to remember both Lists 1 and 2 (Remember group). All participants were then asked to recall all the list words, including those that they were instructed to forget. Results indicated that the directed forgetting effect disappeared in the self-reference judgment condition: in the Forget group, List 1 recall was poorer than recall of List 2, and the Forget group participants recalled fewer List 1 words compared to the Remember group participants. Neither the emotional valence nor self-reference of the material modulated the magnitude of this effect. It is concluded that self-reference may modify directed forgetting.
