Braun (key study) (memory) (Experiment 2)

Question 1

What was the aim?

Answer 1

To see whether false information in an advertisement could make participants think that those events had happened to them as a child.

Question 2

What was the design?

Answer 2

Independent measures

Question 3

What was the sample?

Answer 3

• 167 undergraduate students (104f, 63m)
• From an American university

Question 4

What were the materials?

Answer 4

• Same as experiment 1 with a few changes.
• Ad 1: suggested that they had shaken hands with bugs bunny.
• Ad 2: suggested that they had shaken hands with ariel
• Ad 3: factual control advert but still about disney

Question 5

What was the procedure?

Answer 5

• Participants were given 2 types of false information.
  -The first was that they shook hands with bugs bunny, who isn’t at disney world.
  -The second is that they shook hands with ariel, a character who is at disney world when the study was happening but was not there when they were children.
• The experimenters used the same procedure as experiment 1, however this time the control group and experimental group had Disney adverts to see if it was just the Disney name triggering autobiographical memories.
• The experimental group received the ad with fake info, the control group received a regular, factual Disney ad.

Question 6

What were the results?

Answer 6

• The autobiographical ads were rated as being more involving.
• All of the group’s showed increased confidence that they had shaken hands with a character, even if they didn’t exist. However, those in the experimental group showed a greater increase.

Question 7

What were the conclusions?

Answer 7

• Autobiographical advertising can influence how consumers recall their past.
• Autobiographical ads can make consumers more likely to believe an event, even if it is impossible, happened to them as a child.
• Autobiographical advertising can create false memories.
• The results support the theory that memory is reconstructed as participants memory of events were influenced by the ads.

Question 8

What were the criticisms?

Answer 8

• Age bias as the participants were undergraduates.
• Unethical to alter people’s memories. Many participants said that they were more likely to visit Disney world after seeing the ads, which costs a considerable amount of money.
• The study lacked ecological validity as it took place under lab conditions. People normally aren’t instructed on how to perceive an advertisement.