The effect of social retelling on event recall

Retelling an event in a social setting often means talking about it less factually than we might if trying to recall it as accurately as possible. These distortions that arise from socially oriented retellings could affect the ability to later recall the same event accurately. Does retelling a story in a social situation impair memory compared to not retelling it at all? Or could retrieving the memory, even with a socially oriented mindset, still improve memory? We explored social retelling's effect on memory in a two-session study. Participants heard two stories twice and, after a distractor task, retold the stories according to one of three randomly assigned conditions: social retelling (retell the stories as if talking to friends), accuracy retelling (retell the stories as accurately as possible), or no retelling. A day later, everyone retold the stories as accurately as possible. Participants in the accuracy retelling group included more specific details in their session two retellings than did the social retelling group, which included more specific details than the no retelling group. Elaborations in session two did not differ across groups. Findings suggest retelling a story in a social situation benefits memory, though not as much as retelling a story accurately does.