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"Blaming the victim" under memory load
Stephen D Goldinger1, Heather M Kleider, Tamiko Azuma
1Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe 85287-1104, USA. goldinger@asu.edu
Psychological Science
|February 5, 2003
Summary
Counterfactual thinking, imagining different outcomes, can bias judgments. Lower working memory capacity individuals are more susceptible to this bias, especially when under cognitive load.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Counterfactual thinking, imagining alternative outcomes, is a common human response to negative events.
- While adaptive, it can lead to biases in judgment, such as blame allocation and compensation decisions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how individual differences in working memory capacity affect susceptibility to counterfactual thinking biases.
- To examine the role of cognitive load in exacerbating these biases.
Main Methods:
- Participants with varying working memory capacities made mock-jury decisions on stories presented with or without counterfactual elements.
- A memory load manipulation was introduced during different task stages.
Main Results:
- Individuals with lower working memory capacity showed increased susceptibility to counterfactual bias.
- This effect was particularly pronounced when participants were under concurrent memory load during judgment.
Conclusions:
- Counterfactual thoughts appear to arise automatically and can influence judgments.
- Effortful cognitive control, requiring significant mental resources, may be necessary to suppress or discount these biased thoughts.