Partner forgetfulness weakens responsible forgetting

Responsible forgetting refers to an adaptive process whereby individuals intentionally forget information that does not need to be remembered. This study examined whether responsible forgetting is influenced by the forgetfulness of a partner in collaborative recall. Participants imagined preparing for a camping trip with a hypothetical friend. Each camping item was paired with a cue (You or Friend) indicating whether the participant or friend was responsible for remembering it. Participants in the forgetful condition were told that their friend was forgetful, whereas no information was provided about the friend in the control condition. Results demonstrated that the interaction effect between partner unreliability and memory-responsibility cue on recall performance was statistically significant (OR = 0.39, 95% CI [0.17, 0.90]). Participants in the forgetful condition recalled more friend-assigned items than those in the control condition. These findings indicate that responsible forgetting is flexibly moderated depending on the situation, such as a partner's forgetfulness.