Expectancies and memory: Inferring the past from what must have been.

The effects of justice motivation on memory for self- and other-relevant events

“…Hirt and his colleagues (Hirt et al, 1998(Hirt et al, , 1999 demonstrated that, as with the recall of autobiographical memory, people use their expectancies and current concerns to guide their recall of others' pasts. Hirt (1990) found that participants who expected a fellow student to improve his academic performance from midterm to final grades recalled the student's midterm grades as being lower than did participants with no such expectancy.…”

“…A large body of research demonstrates that peoples' memories for events are often distorted and reconstructed in ways incongruent with the original ''facts" (for reviews, see Davis & Loftus, 2007;Hirt, Lynn, Payne, Krackow, & McCrea, 1999;Hirt, McDonald, & Markman, 1998;Kunda, 1999;Roediger, 1996). Indeed, research on memory bias has shown that, among other things, misinformation (Loftus, 1975;Pickrell, Bernstein, & Loftus, 2004), beliefs and expectancies (Bartlett, 1932;Ross, 1989;Ross & Conway, 1986), moral concerns (Pizarro, Laney, Morris, & Loftus, 2006) and stereotypes (Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994;Snyder & Uranowitz, 1978) affect the selection, construction, and reconstruction of memory.…”

“…In Study 1, we sought initial evidence of justice motivated recall by asking participants to recall the value of a lottery prize given to a ''bad" or ''good" person. On the basis of Hirt et al's (1999) model and research, we expected that participants would remember a smaller lottery prize for the ''bad" versus ''good" winner, presumably because a smaller prize is more congruent with people's justice expectations (i.e., that people get what they deserve). Using a ''carryover" paradigm, participants in Study 2 responded to the same lottery scenario after they were exposed to a manipulation of just world threat.…”

The Consequences of Victim Physical Attractiveness on Reactions to Injustice: The Role of Observers’ Belief in a Just World

“…For example, classic research has shown that, among other things, post-event information (Loftus & Palmer, 1974), expectancies (Conway & Ross, 1984), and stereotypes (Snyder & Uranowitz, 1978) can bias and alter people's recollections of the past. Our particular interest in the present research is with effects of outcome motivation on memory processes (Hirt, Lynn, Payne, Krackow, & McCrea, 1999;Kunda, 1990;Molden & Higgins, 2005). Research has shown that people's motivations to reach desired outcomes and conclusions (e.g., positive self-esteem) can affect selective recall of past events (e.g., Santioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990).…”

One night at sea: effects of verbal priming on perceptions and recollections of wartime events

“…Although a great deal of work has been conducted in the last couple of decades to investigate the psychology of eyewitness behaviour, most of this has been concerned with post-event suggestibility in the recollection of accidents or criminal acts (Hirt, Lynn, Payne, Krackow, & McCrea, 1999;Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978;Sutherland & Hayne, 2001). This is a natural emphasis, given the concern that in reporting on criminal events interrogative and other social processes could themselves impact upon the witnesses' accuracy and reliability.…”