Attitude Change Following Imagined Positive Actions Toward a Social Group: Do Memories Change Attitudes, or Attitudes Change Memories?

Previous research has shown that individuals who imagine taking previously denied positive actions toward members of a stigmatized group sometimes report having actually taken those actions (Frye & Lord, 2009; McIntyre, Lord, Lewis, & Frye, 2004). In addition, the greater the number of previously denied actions they “remember,” the more they subsequently report more positive attitudes toward the group. The present research tested competing explanations for these results—that memories changed attitudes, or that attitudes changed memories. In Experiment 1, attitudes were changed equally by a persuasive message and by imagined actions, yet memory errors were greater and more correlated with attitude change in the imagined actions condition. In Experiment 2, attitude change was greater (and more correlated with memory errors) three weeks after than immediately after the imagined actions. The results suggest that memory errors changed attitudes, consistent with predictions of the source monitoring framework (Johnson, 2006).