Experiment 1

• year?

  2002
• aim?

  seeing whether autobiographically focused adverts affect how people remember a childhood experience
• hypothesis?

  people would reconstruct childhood memories to incorporate info used in advert
• method?

  lab experiment
• experimental design?

  independent measures
• IV?

  whether ppts were shown Disney advert or control advert
• DV?

  * measured using questionnaire

  * difference in score (2 weeks apart) when asked if they'd ever shook hands with their favourite TV character at a resort

  * score from 0 to 100, 100 being that they definitely met them

  * this question was always 4th out of 20 questions about childhood events
• sample?

  107 undergraduates from a university in USA
• method? (1)

  * ppts randomly assigned to group watching Disney advert or control advert

  * in first week, ppts given questionnaire and 2 distractor tasks to do to try and mask aim of experiment and reduce effect of demand characteristics

  * in second week, ppts shown advert they were assigned to and given 5 minutes to write down feelings towards it

  * then rated advert using questionnaire
• method? (2)

  * after short distractor task, experimenter from week one came in and said ppts have to do childhood questionnaire again bc they 'lost it'

  * after another distractor task, ppts given questionnaire asking if they'd ever been to Disney world and if so, then to describe this memory

  * also rated reliability of their memory for the event

  * 2 judges rated these questionnaires

  * ppts then asked what they thought aim of experiment was to test for demand characteristics and whether they believed Disney advert haad altered their memories of Disney
• what study found? (1)

  * 2 judges showed high inter rater reliability

  * of ppts who saw Disney advert: 65% mentioned memories of Disney world; 74% said advert made them imagine the experience

  * ppts who saw Disney advert but hadn't been to Disney world said it made it a lot easier to imagine

  * significantly more ppts in Disney condition increased score from first to second week - went from 47% to 90%
• what study found? (2)

  * significantly more positive thoughts in Disney condition and significantly more of advert's elements (like words used) occurred in Disney group

  * no one guessed aim of experiment so no effect of demand characteristics
• conclusions?

  * autobiographical advertising can lead to making people feel more confident in childhood memory that was suggested in advert

  * autobiographical advertising can affect how we remember the past

  * putting false events in autobiographical advertising can make people believe they actually experienced that event
• criticisms?

  * study lacked ecological validity bc was under artificial conditions

  * lacked construct validity bc measure of imagination inflation was very narrow

  * sample was age biased as all were undergraduates

  * sample was culturally biased bc all were in USA and America is a very commercial country

  * ethical issues bc ppts were deceived and had memory manipulated without consent