Download THEORIES OF FORGETTING : - NW 14-19

THEORIES OF FORGETTING :
MOTIVATED FORGETTING including Repression.
Freud's Iceberg Model for Unconscious, Pre-conscious, & Conscious
Freud likened the
human mind to an
iceberg, the
greater part being
concealed below
the surface. Only
10% of an iceberg
is visible
(conscious)
whereas the other
90% is beneath the
water
(preconscious and
unconscious).
The tip is the only part
feely available to us, this is
the conscious mind.
The part of our mind that is ‘below
the surface’ is the unconscious.
This contains unresolved conflicts
and has a powerful effect on our
behaviour and experience. Freud
argued that many of these conflicts
will show up in our fantasies and
dreams, but the conflicts are so
threatening that they appear in
disguised forms, in the shape of
symbols. We can never see directly
into the unconscious. The Unconscious
is allotted an overwhelming 75%-80%.
According to Freud, there are three levels of consciousness:
Conscious (small): this is the part of the mind that holds what you’re aware of. You can
verbalize about your conscious experience and you can think about it in a logical fashion.
Preconscious (small-medium): this is ordinary memory. So although things stored here
aren’t in the conscious, they can be readily brought into conscious.
Unconscious (enormous): Freud felt that this part of the mind was not directly
accessible to awareness. In part, he saw it as a dump box for urges, feelings and ideas
that are tied to anxiety, conflict and pain.
These feelings and thoughts have not disappeared and according to Freud, they are
there, exerting influence on our actions and our conscious mind and behaviour.
Freud argued that extremely painful or threatening memories, in other words those
associated with great anxiety, are forced into the unconscious mind so that our
conscious mind is protected from them. He called this process repression.
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Repression is an ego-defence mechanism- a way of protecting the ego from information
it would rather ignore.
Research Evidence for Repression : Williams (1994)
Aim : Williams wanted to find out whther women could recall incidents of childhood
abuse.
Method : 129 women were given extended interviews about their sexual histories. .
Hospital documentation showed that they had been abused between the ages of 10
months and 12 years. When interviewed 17 years later, they were aged between 18 and
31.
Results : 38% of the women failed to report the abusive episode documented by the
hospiral authorities. Howeevr, most women did report their general experience of being
abused.
Conclusion : Participants failed to recall specific episodes of abuse because the
memories had been repressed.
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Activity : Can you think of any other reasons why the women did not report the
specific abusive episode to the researchers???
Activity : Can you think of any general criticisms/limitations of Freud’s theory of
forgetting ??
Motivated Forgetting
Some later psychologists have adapted Freud’s theory of repression to form the basis of
a more general term, motivated forgetting, which includes a variety of unpleasant
reasons why we forget, including embarrassment, guilt, shock and avoidance of
humiliation.
There are considerable problems with empirically testing this theory. Experiments have
been conducted in which recall of words learnt under conditions that are either anxietyprovoking or free from anxiety have been compared. There are few differences
between the two conditions, probably because no experimentally induced situation could
or should equate to extremely painful incidents involved in some clinical cases.
Holmes (1990) reviewed a series of such studies and concluded that the concept of
repression had not been validated with experimental research.
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Myers & Brewin (1994) conducted a study in which they compared female participants
classified as repressers (low in anxiety, high in defensiveness) with those who were
high in anxiety but less defensive and those who were low in anxiety and low in
defensiveness (judged by the use of psychometric tests).
They found that repressers took longer than either of the other two groups to recall
unhappy childhood memories and the researchers offer this as evidence of repression.
However, the whole point of repression is that it blocks traumatic memories so forcibly
that they cannot under normal circumstances be recalled. Even when our defences are
down, such as during sleep, these memories, according to Freud, are unlikely to emerge
unless in a very disguised form, and years of therapy may be required before they can
be uncovered.
Most of the evidence related to the theory of repression has been obtained in a clinical
setting in which people in therapy recall long-buried memories of traumatic childhood
experiences. However, these memories are often difficult to corroborate and on
occasions have been shown to be definitely fictitious.
Case Study on False Memory Syndrome.
One such case is that of Beth Rutherford who recalled under therapy that her father
had regularly raped her during her childhood, sometimes with her mother holding her
down. This had resulted in at least two pregnancies which she had herself aborted.
Medical examination of Beth at the age of 22 showed her still to be a virgin.
In this case it was possible to show that the memories were false but it is often
impossible to establish whether such memories are accurate reflections of real
happenings or are reconstructions.
The phenomenon of False Memory Syndrome has understandably caused untold misery
and confusion. Taking false memory syndrome seriously means doubting the testimony of
people who could indeed have been the victims of horrific crimes, whereas taking the
memories at face value can, as in the case described above, mean that innocent people
have their lives destroyed and families are unnecessarily torn apart. This is why the
concept of repression remains very controversial.
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