Recall for confirming events: Memory processes and the maintenance of social stereotypes

Abstract

To examine the effects of stereotypic expectancies on memory for behavioral events that confirm or disconfirm these expectancies, subjects were all presented with the same set of 50 behavior descriptions, where each behavior was associated with the name of one member of a group of 50 men. The 50 items consisted of 17 intelligent, 17 friendly, 3 nonintelligent, 3 unfriendly, and 10 unrelated behaviors. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the group was intellectual and half that the group was friendly. In addition, to assess whether superior memory for confirming or disconfirming events could be localized in the retrieval or encoding process, approximately half of the subjects were given the expectancy prior to presentation of the behaviors, while the other half received the expectancy afterward. Subjects exhibited superior recall and higher frequency estimates for behaviors confirming the stereotype when the expectancy was induced prior to presentation of the behaviors; no such effects were observed for expectancies induced after the behaviors were presented. It was concluded that subjects' superior recall of expectancy-confirming events may account for the selfperpetuating character of social stereotypes, and that memory effects were not due solely to the selective retrieval of behavioral events.