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Self-Referential Memory for the Big-Five Personality Traits
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by Iiona D. Scully and Christopher P. Terry - Elmira College
A classic finding in the study of episodic memory, known
as the self-reference effect, suggests that people who relate
information to themselves typically show greater recall for that
information compared to information processed in other ways. To
our knowledge, researchers have not examined this effect using a
set of trait adjectives based on the dimensions of the Big Five
Personality Inventory (BFI). We aimed to (a) demonstrate a
self-reference effect for trait adjectives, (b) indicate whether recall
is enhanced for endorsed words (“yes–no” effect), and (c) determine
if recall is better for words associated with one’s personality profile
(trait effect). Results supported previous findings indicating that
self-referential encoding promotes better recall than semantic
encoding. However, the presence of a “yes–no” effect depended on
the type of judgment being made (i.e., semantic versus self-referent),
and we observed only a marginal trait effect.
Fall 2011 | Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research (Vol. 16, No. 3, p. 123), published by Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology (Chattanooga, TN). Copyright, 2011, Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology. All rights reserved.