The Role of Familiarity Among Group Members in Collaborative Inhibition and Social Contagion

The present study looks at the effects of familiarity among group members on collaborative inhibition, false memory creation, and social contagion. Friend, nonfriend (adhoc) and nominal three-person groups studied categorized wordlists, followed by free recall and recognition tests, including remember/know judgments. Friend and nonfriend group members were asked to engage in collaborative recall, while nominal group members were tested individually. Results showed that collaborative inhibition was evident among friend and nonfriend groups. However, these detrimental effects of collaboration disappeared during recognition judgments. In terms of susceptibility to false memory creation, it was found that friend groups showed higher levels of social contagion and made more know than remember judgments than nonfriend and nominal group members. These findings suggest that friend group members took the veracity of others' memories for granted and were less able to make clear distinctions between what they did and did not see. The findings are discussed in relation to the lasting effects of collaboration and social pressures on group recall among friend and nonfriend groups.