The article only sought to explore both points of view in the debate over the credibility of repressed memory. This is important to the field of law because there are many cases where repressed memory is the primary or only foundation for accusations. Therefore thoroughly exploring the expansive explanation will better allow the legal field to accurately judge whether repressed memories are …show more content…
It was hypothesized that participants who explained hypothetical events that happened to them before age 10 would be more confident that those events actually happened. This is important to the fields of Law and psychology because of a phenomena called self-generated persuasion. This is where a police officer asks a suspect to explain how he might have committed the crime thereby giving the suspect a plausible course of event in which they are guilty. Also many therapy approaches involve imagining alternative ways an event could have occurred or alternative explanations of the event. This may be important in understanding repressed memory as it can include recreation of memories.
Method
Participants were 60 undergraduate college students who received extra credit for participating. The design of the study was a pretest, posttest design. The IV is whether or not the event was explained. The DV is the posttest confidence rating. Confidence rating are on a scale from 1 to 8, 1 being definitely didn’t happen and 8 being definitely did happen.