In:
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, SAGE Publications
Abstract:
People remember what they deem important. In line with research suggesting that lower-class (vs. higher class) individuals spontaneously appraise other people as more relevant, we show that social class is associated with the habitual use of face memory. We find that lower-class (vs. higher class) participants exhibit better incidental memory for faces (i.e., spontaneous memory for faces they had not been instructed to memorize; Studies 1 and 2). No social-class differences emerge for faces participants are instructed to learn (Study 2), suggesting that this pattern reflects class-based relevance appraisals rather than memory ability. Study 3 extends our findings to eyewitness identification. Lower-class (vs. higher-class) participants’ eyewitness accuracy is less impacted by the explicit relevance of a target (clearly relevant thief vs. incidental bystander). Integrative data analysis shows a robust negative association between social class and spontaneous face memory. Preregistration (Studies 1 and 3) and cross-cultural replication (Study 2) further strengthen the results.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0146-1672
,
1552-7433
DOI:
10.1177/01461672221125599
Language:
English
Publisher:
SAGE Publications
Publication Date:
2022
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2047603-6
SSG:
5,2
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