The effects of social exclusion on directed forgetting of social and non-social information

Social exclusion has been found to impair inhibitory control and working memory, but its effect on directed forgetting has remained largely unexplored. Using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm, the present study employed both verbal and pictorial materials to investigate how social exclusion affects the directed forgetting of social and non-social information. In Experiment 1, 54 participants (M_age = 23.87 years, SD = 2.80) were randomly assigned to either the exclusion group (n = 26) or the inclusion group (n = 28). In Experiment 2, 56 participants (M_age = 19.63 years, SD = 2.67) were recruited, including 27 in the exclusion group and 29 in the inclusion group. Results indicated that the directed forgetting effect was significantly reduced in the exclusion group compared to the inclusion group. The impairing effect of social exclusion was more pronounced for social information than for non-social information. Furthermore, the directed forgetting effect was smaller for pictorial materials than for verbal ones. These findings suggest that social exclusion disrupts the directed forgetting process, and that social information presented as images exhibits a significant mnemonic advantage. This highlights the importance of the social context in the directed forgetting process and provides multidimensional evidence for a deeper understanding of the consequences of social exclusion.