Loss of Mnemic Neglect Among Socially Anxious Individuals

Abstract

This is an article that was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. The version of record can be found here: http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.2015.34.4.322The relation between social anxiety and memory for self-threatening information was investigated in the context of the mnemic neglect paradigm (Sedikides & Green, 2000). It was hypothesized that those high in social anxiety would evince a loss of mnemic neglect: They would show a reduced likelihood of poor memory for central, negative, and self-referent behaviors (i.e., behaviors that reflected social ineptness and untrustworthiness), and would do so because these behaviors are especially threatening to socially anxious individuals and fit well with their self-views. Results from three studies were consistent with the hypothesis. The loss of mnemic neglect observed in two of the studies could not be accounted for by depression, nor was it limited to a social threat context. The results were mixed as to whether the loss of mnemic neglect in socially anxious individuals was limited to behaviors that reflected social ineptness, or whether it also emerged in memory for behaviors that reflected untrustworthiness. Implications for social anxiety, the self, and memory are discussed

Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults

“…These findings were replicated in another three studies (Saunders et al, 2012). Zengel et al (2015) conducted two experiments assessing the extent to which participants varied in levels of social anxiety (Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; Rodebaugh, Woods, Heimberg, Liebowitz, & Schneider, 2006). These participants engaged in a modified mnemic neglect paradigm in which some of the behaviours were linked to traits thought to be important to social anxiety.…”

“…Participants who varied in level of dysphoria (Beck Depression Inventory;Beck, Steer, & Garbin, 1988) were exposed to self-referent behavioural feedback (positive vs. negative, relevant to central or peripheral trait dimensions). The results demonstrated a loss of mnemic neglect associated with dysphoria: Participants high in dysphoria had a greater recall rate for self-threatening (negative, central) feedback than those low in dysphoria (but see Zengel et al, 2015, who in subsidiary analyses reported two non-replications of this loss of mnemic neglect in high dysphorics). We note that in Saunders (2011) this loss of mnemic neglect occurred only for feedback that was especially threatening: The effect did not manifest for peripheral negative behaviours, which were relatively low on self-threat.…”

“…Despite this minor complication, the implications of these results are clear: (1) people have trouble remembering self-threatening information, and (2) this effect extends to trait dimensions that go beyond those used by Sedikides and Green (2000). In addition, Zengel et al (2015) found that high social anxiety was linked to loss of mnemic neglect: High social anxiety predicted disproportionate recall for negative behaviours that reflected central trait dimensions. The results diverged slightly across experiments.…”

“…The findings from the critical experiments confirm that the memory impairment for self/negative/central trait dimension-relevant (i.e., self-threatening) behaviours reflected the actions of a participant's self and were not driven by memory for feedback directed at others. A promising strategy would be to design experiments likely to produce loss of mnemic neglect (a term coined by Zengel, Skowronski, Valentiner, & Sedikides, 2015). Such experiments (and we have already provided a few examples) would involve the search for circumstances or persons who do not show the typical impaired memory for self/negative/central trait dimension-relevant behaviours (Saunders, Vallath, & Reed, 2015).…”

“…An MNE was obtained in both of the Zengel et al (2015) experiments. However, this effect extended not only to central trait dimension-relevant behaviours, but also to peripheral trait dimension-relevant behaviours (a result also reported by L.S.…”