Rendering the implausible plausible: Narrative construction, suggestion, and memory.

Abstract

If we pay any attention to the media at all these days, it might be easy for some of us to conclude that we are regularly visited by aliens who abduct innocent earthlings and perform repugnant medical procedures on them and harvest their sperm and eggs, that secret satanic rituals are being conducted in the basements of our neighbors' homes, and that some of us live our lives unaware that our bodies host a boggling array of personalities.Not much more than a decade or two ago, such beliefs would be viewed as implausible at best, embraced only by fringe elements of our society or the psychological community. Now, it seems, such beliefs are infused in mainstream culture and are reflected in the narratives that clients construct in psychotherapy. Such beliefs can no longer be dismissed as excesses of millenial thinking or as mere hokum, because therapists are finding increasingly that clients hold fast to imaginative narratives that contain this kind of content.

False confessions and false memories: a model for understanding retractors' experiences

“…viii As laboratory studies have shown, what participants recall whilst hypnotized can be heavily influenced by the expectations and beliefs of the hypnotist (Lynn, Pintar, Stafford, Marmelstein & Lock, 1998;Spanos, Menary, Gabora, DuBreuil & Dewhirst, 1991, experiment 2).…”

Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens.

“…They seek the aid of a hypnotherapist to help understand their anomalous experiences, and it is during hypnotic regression sessions that they “recall” memories of having been abducted (i. e., being taken into space ships, sexually experimented on by aliens, etc.). The striking similarity of these narratives suggests a widely shared cultural script (Lynn, Pintar, Stafford, Marmelstein, & Lock, 1998). Although at least 15% of the general population has experienced sleep paralysis episodes (e. g., Hufford, 1982), not everyone concludes that alien abduction explains these anomalous experiences.…”

Digitally manipulating memory: Effects of doctored videos and imagination in distorting beliefs and memories

“…Individuals are unlikely to develop false memories, unless they accept the suggested event as something that could plausibly have happened (Hart & Schooler, 2006;Johnson & Raye, 2000;Mazzoni & Kirsch, 2002;Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997; for a discussion of social-influence processes by which implausible ideas can come to seem plausible, see Lynn, Pintar, Stafford, Marmelstein, & Lock, 1998). To the extent that it is persuasive, false evidence, by definition, increases the perceived plausibility of the suggested event.…”