Positivity bias in memory of the source of self-information

It has been widely recognized that memory can be distorted to make it appear that our performance or judgment was better than it actually was or it can be biased toward positive feedback about ourselves. The current work examines whether similar phenomenon occurs in identifying the source of a memory. Given that the source of information indicates its credibility, we hypothesized that participants would be biased toward recollecting favorable information from the alleged reliable source and non favorable information from the unreliable source. A total of 120 students were administered a computerized version of two personality measures differing in their a priori validity. The first one was an ostensibly reputable personality inventory and the other one was an alleged projective test which reliability and validity was to be verified. After each measure participants received a bogus feedback profile that consisted of 26 behaviors (negative and positive). After 30-minute delay, they attempted to recall the source of each item. The participants who completed the memory test very quickly were biased toward recollecting favorable information from the reliable source. The pattern of results supports the assumed automaticity of self-enhancement. peerReviewed publishedVersion