Mnemic neglect is a term used in social psychology to describe a pattern of selective forgetting in which certain autobiographical memories tend to be recalled more easily if they are consistent with positive self-concept. The mnemic neglect model stipulates that memory is self-protective if the information is negative, self-referent, and concerns central traits.
Mnemic neglect model Experiments have been conducted to test for the specific conditions under which mnemic neglect occurs. A standard procedure has been used across several experiments to test for these conditions. In this procedure, participants are presented with a list of 32 behavioral traits. They are asked to either encode each trait as if it applied to them (i.e. "consider people describing you with these traits") or as if it applied to a stranger named Chris (i.e. "consider people describing Chris with these traits"). Several of these experiments have found that the first condition under which mnemic neglect occurs is that the traits must be negative. Feedback from others is less easily recalled when it is negative in nature than when it is positive. Second, the information must be self-referent. Sedikides and Green (2004) conducted a study using the standard procedure in which half of the participants were asked to consider feedback as if it applied to them and half were asked to consider the same feedback as if it applied to someone else. They found that negative feedback was recalled as frequently as positive feedback when the feedback was directed at another. However, when the feedback was directed at oneself, negative feedback was recalled less frequently than positive feedback. Third, the information must pertain to a central, rather than peripheral, self-conception. A central self-conception is a generally positive trait that is considered fixed and highly descriptive (i.e. trustworthy vs. untrustworthy). In contrast, a peripheral self-conception is considered only moderately descriptive, less positive, and less important (i.e. modest vs. immodest). Feedback that counteracts a central self-conception is recalled much less frequently than feedback that counteracts a peripheral self-conception. In fact, the recall for feedback on modifiable traits was unaffected by whether the feedback was positive or negative.
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