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Locus of Control

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Locus of control is a theory in personality psychology referring to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an important aspect of personality studies.

One's "locus" (Latin for "place" or "location") can either be internal (meaning the person believes that they control their life) or external (meaning they believe that their environment, some higher power, or other people control their decisions and their life).

Individuals with a high internal locus of control believe that events result primarily from their own behavior and actions. For example, if a person with internal loci of control does not perform as well as they wanted to on a test, they would blame it on lack of preparedness on their part. Or if they performed well on a test, then they would think that it was because they studied enough.[1] Those with a high external locus of control believe that powerful others, fate, or chance primarily determine events. Using the test performance example again, if a person with external loci of control does poorly on a test, they would blame the test questions being too difficult. Whereas if they performed well on a test, they would think the teacher was being lenient, or that they were lucky.[1]

Those with a high internal locus of control have better control of their behavior, tend to be more politically involved,[citation needed] and are more likely to attempt to influence other people than those with a high external (or low internal respectively) locus of control[citation needed]. They also assign greater likelihood to their efforts being successful and more actively seek information concerning their situation.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] History of concept

Locus of control is the framework of Rotter's (1954) social learning theory of personality. In 1966, Rotter published an article in Psychological Monographs which summarized over a decade of research by himself and his students, much of it previously unpublished. Lefcourt (1976) defined perceived locus of control as follows: "Perceived control is defined as a generalised expectancy for internal as opposed to external control of reinforcements" (Lefcourt 1976, p. 27). Attempts have been made to trace the genesis of the concept to the work of Alfred Adler, but its immediate background lies in the work of Rotter students. Early work on the topic of expectancies about control of reinforcement had been performed in the 1950s by James and Phares prepared for unpublished doctoral dissertations supervised by Rotter at Ohio State University.[2]. Another Rotter student William H. James (not to be confused with William James), who studied two types of expectancy shifts:

  • typical expectancy shifts, believing that a success or failure would be followed by a similar outcome; and
  • atypical expectancy shifts, believing that a success or failure would be followed by a dissimilar outcome.

Work in this field led to the hypothesis that typical expectancy shifts were displayed more often by those who attributed their outcomes to ability, whereas those who displayed atypical expectancy more likely to attributed their outcomes to chance. This was interpreted as saying that people could be divided into those who attribute to ability (an internal cause) versus those who attribute to luck (an external cause). Bernard Weiner argued that rather than ability versus luck, locus may differ in attribution to stable versus unstable causes.

Rotter (1975, 1989) has discussed problems and misconceptions in others' use of the internal versus external control of reinforcement construct.

[edit] Locus of control personality orientations

Rotter (1975) cautioned that internality and externality represent two ends of a continuum, not an either/or typology. Internals tend to attribute outcomes of events to their own control. Externals attribute outcomes of events to external circumstances. It should not be thought however, that internality is linked exclusively with attribution to effort and externality with attribution to luck, as Weiner's work (see below) makes clear. This has obvious implications for differences between internals and externals in terms of their achievement motivation, suggesting that internal locus is linked with higher levels of N-ach (Need for Achievement). Due to their locating control outside themselves, externals tend to feel they have less control over their fate. People with an external locus of control tend to be more stressed and prone to clinical depression (Benassi, Sweeney & Dufour, 1988; cited in Maltby, Day & Macaskill, 2007).

Internals were believed by Rotter (1966) to exhibit two essential characteristics: high achievement motivation and low outer-directedness. This was the basis of the locus of control scale proposed by Rotter in 1966, although this was actually based on Rotter's belief that locus of control is a unidimensional construct. Since 1970, Rotter's assumption of unidimensionality has been challenged, with Levenson, for example, arguing that different dimensions of locus of control, such as belief that events in one's life are self-determined, are organized by powerful others and are chance-based, must be separated. Weiner's early work in the 1970s suggested that more-or-less orthogonal to the internality-externality dimension, we should also consider differences between those who attribute to stable causes, and those who attribute to unstable causes.[3]

This meant that attributions could be to ability (an internal stable cause), effort (an internal unstable cause), task difficulty (an external stable cause) or luck (an external, unstable cause). Such at least were how the early Weiner saw these four causes, although he has been challenged as to whether people do see luck, for example, as an external cause, whether ability is always perceived as stable and whether effort is always seen as changing. Indeed, in more recent publications (e.g. Weiner, 1980) Weiner uses different terms for these four causes—such as "objective task characteristics" in place of task difficulty and "chance" in place of luck. It has also been notable how psychologists since Weiner have distinguished between stable effort and unstable effort—knowing that, in some circumstances, effort could be seen as a stable cause, especially given the presence of certain words such as "industrious" in the English language.

[edit] Scales to measure locus of control

The most famous and widely used questionnaire to measure locus of control is the 23-item forced choice items (plus 6 filler item) scale of Rotter (1966), but this is not the only questionnaire—indeed, predating Rotter's work by five years is Bialer's (1961) 23-item scale for children. Also of relevance to locus of control scale are the Crandall Intellectual Ascription of Responsibility Scale (Crandall, 1965), and the Nowicki-Strickland Scale.[4] One of the earliest psychometric scales to assess locus of control, using a Likert-type scale in contrast to the forced-choice alternative measure in Rotter's scale, was that devised by W.H. James, for his unpublished doctoral dissertation, supervised by Rotter at Ohio State University, although this remained an unpublished scale.[5]

Many measures of locus of control have appeared since Rotter's scale. These scales were reviewed by Furnham and Steele (1993), and include those related to health psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, and those specifically for children, such as the Stanford Preschool Internal-External Control Index,[6] which is used for three- to six-year-olds. Furnham and Steele (1993) cite data that suggest that the most reliable and valid of the questionnaires for adults is the Duttweiler scale. For a review of the health questionnaires cited by these authors, see below under "Applications".

The Duttweiler (1984) Internal Control Index (ICI) addresses perceived problems with the Rotter scales, including its forced-choice format, susceptibility to social desirability and heterogeneity as indicated by factor analysis. She also notes that, while other scales existed in 1984 to measure locus of control, "they appear to be subject to many of the same problems" (Duttweiler, 1984, p. 211). Unlike the forced-choice format used on Rotter's scale, Duttweiler's 28-item ICI uses a Likert-type scale, in which people have to state whether they would rarely, occasionally, sometimes, frequently or usually behave as specified by each of 28 statements. The ICI assess variables pertinent to internal locus: cognitive processing, autonomy, resistance to social influence, self-confidence and delay of gratification. A small (133 student subjects) validation study indicated that the scale had good internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha of 0.85).

[edit] Related area: attributional style

Main article: Explanatory style

Attributional style, or explanatory style, is a concept that was introduced by Lyn Yvonne Abramson, Martin Seligman and John D. Teasdale (Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale, 1978). Buchanan and Seligman (1995) have edited a book-length review of the topic. This concept goes a stage further than Weiner, stating that, in addition to the concepts of internality-externality and stability, a dimension of globality-specificity[clarification needed] is also needed. Abramson et al. therefore believed that how people explained successes and failures in their lives related to whether they attributed these to internal or external factors, to factors that were short-term or long-term and to factors that affected all situations in their situations.[clarification needed]

The topic of attribution theory, introduced to psychology by Fritz Heider, has had an influence on locus of control theory, but it is important to appreciate the differences between the history of these two models in psychology. Attribution theorists have been, largely speaking, social psychologists, concerned with the general processes characterizing how and why people in general make the attributions they do, whereas locus of control theorists have been more concerned with individual differences.

Significant to the history of both approaches were the contributions made by Bernard Weiner, in the 1970s. Prior to this time, attribution theorists and locus of control theorists had been largely concerned with divisions into external and internal loci of causality. Weiner added the dimension of stability-instability, and somewhat later, controllability, indicating how a cause could be perceived as having been internal to a person yet still beyond the person's control. The stability dimension added to the understanding of why people succeed or fail after such outcomes. Although not part of Weiner's model, a further dimension of attribution was added by Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, that of globality-specificity (see the article on explanatory style).

[edit] Applications of locus of control theory

Locus of control's most famous application has probably been in the area of health psychology, largely thanks to the work of Kenneth Wallston. Scales to measure locus of control in the health domain are reviewed by Furnham and Steele (1993). The most famous of these would be the Health Locus of Control Scale and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, or MHLC (Wallston, Wallston, & DeVellis, 1976; Wallston, Wallston, Kaplan & Maides, 1976). The latter scale is based on the idea, echoing Levenson's earlier work, that health may be attributed to three possible outcomes: internal factors, such as self-determination of a healthy lifestyle, powerful others, such as one's doctor, or luck.

Some of the scales reviewed by Furnham and Steele (1993) relate to health in more specific domains, such as obesity (for example, Saltzer's (1982) Weight Locus of Control Scale or Stotland and Zuroff's (1990) Dieting Beliefs Scale), or mental health (such as Wood and Letak's (1982) Mental Health Locus of Control Scale or the Depression Locus of Control Scale of Whiteman, Desmond and Price, 1987) and cancer (the Cancer Locus of Control Scale of Pruyn et al., 1988). In discussing applications of the concept to health psychology, Furnham and Steele also refer to Claire Bradley's work, linking locus of control to management of diabetes mellitus. Empirical data on health locus of control in various fields has been reviewed by Norman and Bennett (1995). These authors note that data on whether certain health-related behaviors are related to internal health locus of control have been ambiguous. For example, they note that some studies found that internal health locus of control is linked with increased exercise, but they also cite several studies that have found only a weak or no relationship between exercise behaviors (such as jogging) and internal health locus of control. They note similar ambiguity for data on the relationship between internal health locus of control and other health-related behaviors, such as breast self-examination, weight control and preventative health behaviors. Of particular interest are the data these authors cite on the relationship between internal health locus of control and alcohol consumption.

Norman and Bennett note that some studies that compared alcoholics with non-alcoholics suggest alcoholism is linked to increased externality for health locus of control, but other studies have found alcoholism to be linked with increased internality, and similar ambiguity has been found in studies that looked at alcohol consumption in a more general, non-alcoholic population. Norman and Bennett appear a little more optimistic in reviewing the literature on the relationship between internal health locus of control and smoking cessation, although they also point out that there are grounds for supposing that powerful others health locus of control, as well as internal health locus of control, may be linked with smoking cessation.

Norman and Bennett argue that a stronger relationship is found when health locus of control is assessed for specific domains than when general measures of locus of control are taken. Overall, studies using behavior-specific health locus scales have tended to produce more positive results (Lefcourt, 1991). Moreover, these scales have been found to be more predictive of general behavior than more general scales, such as the MHLC scale (Norman & Bennett, 1995, p. 72). Norman and Bennett cite several studies that used health-related locus of control scales in specific domains, including smoking cessation (Georgio & Bradley, 1992), diabetes (Ferraro, Price, Desmond & Roberts, 1987), tablet-treated diabetes (Bradley, Lewis, Jennings & Ward, 1990), hypertension (Stantion, 1987), arthritis (Nicasio et al., 1985), cancer (Pruyn et al., 1988) and heart and lung disease (Allison, 1987).

They also argue that health locus of control is better at predicting health-related behavior if studied in conjunction with health value, i.e. the value people attach to their health, suggesting that health value is an important moderator variable in the health locus of control relationship. For example, Weiss and Larsen (1990) (cited in Norman & Bennett, 1995) found increased relationship between internal health locus of control and health when health value was assessed. Despite the importance that Norman and Bennet (1995) attach to use of specific measures of locus of control, there are still some general textbooks on personality, such as Maltby, Day and Macaskill (2007), which continue to cite studies linking internal locus of control with improved physical health, mental health and quality of life in people undergoing conditions as diverse as HIV, migraines, diabetes, kidney disease and epilepsy (Maltby, Day & Macaskill, 2007)

In the 1970s and 1980s, Whyte correlated locus of control with academic success of students enrolled in higher education courses. Students who tended to be more internally controlled believed that hard work and focus would result oftentimes in successful academic progress and they performed better academically. Those students who were identified as more externally controlled, believing that their future depended upon luck or fate, tended to have lower academic performance levels. Cassandra B. Whyte further researched how control tendency influenced behavioral outcomes in the academic realm by examining the effects of various modes of counseling on grade improvements and the locus of control of high-risk college students.[7][8]

[edit] Organizational psychology and religion

Other fields to which the concept has been applied include industrial and organizational psychology, sports psychology, educational psychology and the psychology of religion. Richard Kahoe has published celebrated work in the latter field, suggesting that intrinsic religious orientation correlates positively, extrinsic religious orientation correlates negatively, with internal locus.[9] Of relevance to both health psychology and the psychology of religion is the work prepared by Holt, Clark, Kreuter and Rubio (2003), in preparing a questionnaire to assess spiritual health locus of control. These authors distinguished between an active spiritual health locus of control orientation, in which "God empowers the individual to take healthy actions"[10] and a more passive spiritual health locus of control orientation, where people leave everything to God in the care of their own health. In industrial and organizational psychology, it has been found that internals are more likely to take positive action to change their jobs, rather than merely to talk about occupational change, than externals (Allen, Weeks & Moffat, 2005; cited in Maltby et al., 2007).

[edit] Familial origins

The development of locus of control is associated with family style and resources, cultural stability and experiences with effort leading to reward.[citation needed] Many internals have grown up with families that modeled typical internal beliefs. These families emphasized effort, education, responsibility and thinking. Parents typically gave their children rewards they had promised them. In contrast, externals are typically associated with lower socioeconomic status. Societies experiencing social unrest increase the expectancy of being out-of-control, so people in such societies become more external.

The research of Schneewind (1995; cited in Schultz & Schultz, 2005) suggests that "children in large single parent families headed by women are more likely to develop an external locus of control" (Schultz & Schultz, 2005, p. 439). Schultz and Schultz also point out that children who develop an internal locus tend to come from families where parents have been supportive and consistent in self-discipline. There has been some ambiguity about whether parental locus of control influences a child's locus of control, although at least one study has found that children are more likely to attribute their successes and failures to unknown causes if their parents had an external locus of control (see the first of the external links listed below).

As children grow older, they gain skills that give them more control over their environment. In support of this, psychological research has found that older children have more internal locus of control than younger children. Findings from early studies on the familial origins of locus of control were summarized by Lefcourt:

"Warmth, supportiveness and parental encouragement seem to be essential for development of an internal locus".[11]

[edit] Locus of control and age

It is sometimes assumed that as people age, they will become less internal and more external, but data here has been ambiguous.[12] Longitudinal data collected by Gatz and Karel (cited in Johnson et al., 2004[citation needed]) imply that internality may increase up to middle age, and thereafter decrease. Noting the ambiguity of data in this area, Aldwin and Gilmer (2004) cite Lachman's claim that locus of control is ambiguous. Indeed, there is evidence here that changes in locus of control in later life relate more visibly to increased externality, rather than reduced internality, if the two concepts are taken to be orthogonal. Evidence cited by Schultz and Schultz (2005), for example Heckhausen and Schulz (1995) or Ryckman and Malikosi, 1975 (cited in Schultz & Schultz, 2005), suggests that locus of control increases in internality up until middle age. These authors also note that attempts to control the environment become more pronounced between the age of eight and fourteen. For more on the relationship between locus of control and coping with the demands of later life, see the article on aging.

A study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine examined the health effect of childhood "locus of control". 7,500 British adults followed from birth who had shown an internal locus of control at the age of 10 were less likely to be overweight at age 30. The children who had an internal locus of control also appeared the have higher levels of self esteem.[13]

[edit] Gender-based differences in locus of control

As Schultz and Schultz (2005) point out, significant gender differences in locus of control have not been found for adults in a U.S. population. However, these authors also note that there may be specific sex-based differences for specific categories of item to assess locus of control—for example, they cite evidence that men may have a greater internal locus for questions related to academic achievement (Strickland & Haley, 1980; cited in Schultz & Schultz, 2005).

[edit] Cross-cultural issues in locus of control

The question of whether people from different cultures vary in locus of control has long been of interest to social psychologists. Japanese people tend to be more external in locus of control orientation than people in the U.S., whereas differences in locus of control between different countries within Europe, and between the U.S. and Europe, tend to be small (Berry, Poortinga, Segall & Dasen, 1992). As Berry et al. (1992) point out, different ethnic groups within the United States have been compared on locus of control, with blacks in the U.S. being more external than whites, even when socio-economic status is controlled (Dyal, 1984; cited in Berry et al., 1992). Berry et al. (1992) also point out how research on other ethnic minorities in the U.S., such as Hispanics, has been ambiguous. More on cross-cultural variations in locus of control can be found in Shiraev and Levy (2004). The research in this area indicates how locus of control has been a useful concept for researchers in cross-cultural psychology.

[edit] Self-efficacy

Further information: Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy, a related concept, introduced by Albert Bandura, has been measured by means of a psychometric scale[14] and differs from locus of control in that it relates to competence in circumscribed situations and activities (rather than more general cross-situational beliefs about control). Bandura has also emphasised differences between efficacy and self-esteem—using examples where low self-efficacy (for instance in ballroom dancing) are unlikely to result in low self-esteem where competence in that domain is not deemed very important to a particular individual.

Smith (1989) has argued that locus of control only weakly measure self-efficacy because "only a subset of items refer directly to the subject's capabilities" (Smith, p. 229). Smith noted that training in coping skills led to increases in self-efficacy, but did not affect locus of control as measured by Rotter's (1966) scale.

[edit] Summary, critique and the future

Locus of control has generated much research in a variety of areas in psychology. The construct is applicable to fields such as educational psychology, health psychology or clinical psychology. There will probably continue to be debate about whether specific or more global measures of locus of control will prove to be more useful. Careful distinctions should also be made between locus of control (a concept linked with expectancies about the future) and attributional style (a concept linked with explanations for past outcomes), or between locus of control and concepts such as self-efficacy. The importance of locus of control as a topic in psychology is likely to remain quite central for many years.

Locus of control has also has been included as one of the four dimensions that comprise core self-evaluations, one's fundamental appraisal of oneself, along with neuroticism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.[15] The concept of core self-evaluations was first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997),[15] and since has proven to have the ability to predict several work outcomes, specifically, job satisfaction and job performance.[15][16][17][18][19]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Carlson, N.R., et al. (2007). Psychology: The Science of Behaviour - 4th Canadian ed.. Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada.
  2. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Lefcourt; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text
  3. ^ Weiner, 1974
  4. ^ Nowicki & Strickland, 1971
  5. ^ Lefcourt, 1976
  6. ^ Mischel et al., 1974; cited in Furnham & Steele, 1993
  7. ^ Whyte, C., "An Integrated Counseling and Learning Assistance Center" (1980). New Directions Sourcebook-Learning Assistance Centers. Jossey-Bass, Inc.
  8. ^ Whyte, C., "Effective Conseling Methods for High-Risk College Freshmen (1978)." Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance. January, 6, (4). 198-200.
  9. ^ Kahoe, 1974
  10. ^ Holt et al., p294
  11. ^ Lefcourt, 1976, p. 100
  12. ^ Aldwin & Gilmer, 2004; Johnson, Grant, Plomin, Pedersen, Ahern, Berg & McClearn, 2001
  13. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080619/hl_nm/self_confident_dc;_ylt=AqQCX7YWjbZ2hPTBb4Adglqs0NUE
  14. ^ Sherer, Madux et al., 1982
  15. ^ a b c Judge, T. A.; Locke, E. A.; Durham, C. C. (1997). "The dispositional causes of job satisfaction: A core evaluations approach". Research in Organizational Behavior 19: 151–188. 
  16. ^ Bono, J. E.; Judge, T. A. (2003). "Core self-evaluations: A review of the trait and its role in job satisfaction and job performance". European Journal of Personality 17 (Suppl1): S5-S18. doi:10.1002/per.48. 
  17. ^ Dormann, C.; Fay, D.; Zapf, D.; Frese, M. (2006). "A state-trait analysis of job satisfaction: On the effect of core self-evaluations". Applied Psychology: An International Review 55 (1): 27–51. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.2006.00227.x. 
  18. ^ Judge, T. A.; Locke, E. A.; Durham, C. C.; Kluger, A. N. (1998). "Dispositional effects on job and life satisfaction: The role of core evaluations". Journal of Applied Psychology 83 (1): 17–34. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.83.1.17. 
  19. ^ Judge, T. A.; Bono, J. E. (2001). "Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis". Journal of Applied Psychology 86 (1): 80–92. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.1.80. 

[edit] References

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  • Holt, C.L., Clark, E.M., Kreuter, M.W., Rubio, D. (2003). "Spiritual Health locus of control and cancer beliefs among urban African American women". Health Psychology 22 (3): 294–9. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.22.3.294. PMID 12790257. 
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  • Whyte, C., "An Integrated Counseling and Learning Assistance Center" (1980). New Directions Sourcebook-Learning Assistance Centers. Jossey-Bass, Inc.
  • Whyte, C. (January 1978). "Effective Conseling Methods for High-Risk College Freshmen". Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance 6 (4): 198–200. 
  • Xenikou, A.; Furnham, A., McCarrey, M. (1997). "Attributional style for negative events: A proposition for a more valid and reliable measaure of attributional style". British Journal of Psychology 88: 53–69. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1997.tb02620.x. 

[edit] External links

External link for Attributional Style:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control


Categories: Psychology
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Implicit Memory

31st March 2011 |

Implicit memory is a type of memory in which previous experiences aid in the performance of a task without conscious awareness of these previous experiences.[1] Evidence for implicit memory arises in priming, a process whereby subjects show improved performance on tasks for which they have been subconsciously prepared.[2] Implicit memory also leads to the illusion-of-truth effect, which suggests that subjects are more likely to rate as true those statements that they have already heard, regardless of their veracity.[3] In daily life, people rely on implicit memory every day in the form of procedural memory, the type of memory that allows people to remember how to tie their shoes or ride a bicycle without consciously thinking about these activities. Research into implicit memory indicates that it operates through a different mental process from explicit memory.[1]

Contents

[edit] Evidence and current research

Advanced studies of implicit memory began only a few decades ago. Many of these studies focus on the effect of implicit memory known as priming.[1] Several studies have been performed that confirm the existence of a separate entity which is implicit memory. In one such experiment, participants were asked to listen to several songs and decide if they were familiar with the song or not. Half of the participants were presented with familiar American folk songs and the other half were presented with songs made using the tunes of the same songs from group 1 but mixed with new lyrics. Results show that participants in group 1 had a much higher chance of recalling the songs as being familiar, even though in both groups, the tunes of the songs were the same. [4] This study shows that people are even implicitly making connections amongst their memories. Much memory study focuses on associative memory, or memories formed between two entities, linking them together in the brain. This study shows that people implicitly make a strong associative connection between a song’s tune and its lyrics that they can’t separate later.

[edit] Current research

“The question of whether implicit and explicit memory depend on a single underlying system or on multiple underlying systems is not yet resolved.” [1] The findings display such a variety of phenomena that there has not yet been a theory to account for all of the observations. Instead, two theories have been presented to explain different subsets of the data.

[edit] Activation processing

Activation processing is one of two parts in Mandler’s dual processing theory. According to Mandler, there are two processes that operate on mental representations. The first is activation, where increased activity causes a memory to be more distinctive. This increases the familiarity component of the memory, which explains results from priming effects. The second is elaboration, which is a conscious memory used to encode explicit memories that involves activation, but also creating new relationships amongst existing memories. [5]

[edit] Multiple memory system

The multiple memory system theory ascribes the differences in implicit and explicit memory to the differences in the underlying structures. The theory says that explicit memories are associated with a declarative memory system which is responsible for the formation of new representations or data structures. In contrast, implicit memories are associated with a procedural memory system where memories are just modifications of existing procedures or processing operations. [1]

[edit] Illusion-of-truth effect

The illusion-of-truth effect states that a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than an unfamiliar one. In a 1977 experiment participants were asked to read 60 plausible statements every two weeks and to rate them based on their validity. A few of those statements (some of them true, others false) were presented more than once in different sessions. Results showed that participants were more likely to rate as true statements the ones they had previously heard (even if they didn't consciously remember having heard them), regardless of the actual validity of the statement.

As the illusion-of-truth effect occurs even without explicit knowledge, it is a direct result of implicit memory. Some participants rated previously heard sentences as true even when they were previously told that they were false.[6] The illusion-of-truth effect shows in some ways the potential dangers of implicit memory as it can lead to unconscious decisions about a statement's veracity.

[edit] Procedural memory

A form of implicit memory used every day is called procedural memory. Procedural memory lets us perform some actions (such as writing or riding a bike) even if we are not consciously thinking about it.

In one experiment two groups of people, one composed of amnesic patients with heavily impaired long-term memory, and the other composed by healthy subjects, were asked several times to solve a Tower of Hanoi puzzle (a complex problem-solving game that requires thirty-one steps to complete). The first group showed the same improvements over time as the second group, even if some participants claimed that they didn't even remember having seen the puzzle before. These findings strongly suggest that procedural memory is completely independent from declarative memory.[7]

In another experiment two groups of people were given a flavored carbonated drink. The first group was later exposed to motion sickness, and these participants developed a taste aversion against the carbonated drink, even if they were made aware that the drink didn't lead to the motion sickness. This shows that there appears to be an implicit, procedural memory that subconsciously links the sickness and the drink flavor.[8]

It is debated whether implicit attitudes (that is, attitudes people have without being consciously aware of them) belong under the category of implicit memory or if this merely involves a pragmatic approach to asserting knowledge. In some ways, implicit attitudes resemble procedural memory as they rely on an implicit, unconscious piece of knowledge that was previously learned.[9]

[edit] Evidence for the separation of implicit and explicit memory

Evidence strongly suggests that implicit memory is largely distinct from explicit memory and operates through a different process in the brain. Recently, interest has been directed towards studying these differences, most notably by studying amnesic patients and the effect of priming.

[edit] Implicit memory in amnesic patients

The strongest evidence that suggests a separation of implicit and explicit memory focuses on studies of amnesic patients. As was previously discussed in the section on procedural memory, amnesic patients showed unimpaired ability to learn tasks and procedures that do not rely on explicit memory. In one study, amnesic patients showed a severely impaired ability in verbal long-term memory, but no impairment in their memory for learning how to solve a certain motor task called a pursuit rotor. Patients showed this improvement over time even while claiming on each occasion to have never seen the puzzle before.[10] This result indicates that the mechanism which allows for long-term declarative memory does not have a similar effect on implicit memory. Furthermore, studies on priming in amnesic patients also reveal the possibility of an intact implicit memory despite a severely impaired explicit memory. For example, amnesic patients and a control group showed similar improvements in word completion as a result of priming, even if they had no memory of being involved in a previous test.[11] That priming occurs without the involvement of explicit memory again suggests that the two types of memory have different functions in the brain.

[edit] Other evidence for differences between implicit and explicit memory

Besides the study of amnesic patients, other evidence also indicates a separation between implicit and explicit memory. Basic patterns that exist for explicit memory development do not apply to implicit memory, implying that the two are two different processes. Children tested at various increasing ages, in different stages of development, do not exhibit the same increase in performance in implicit memory tasks the way they always do with explicit memory tasks. The same is true for elderly people. Studies show that as people grow older, their performance on explicit memory tasks declines, however their performance on implicit memory tasks does not decline at all. [12]

Many experiments have been performed to demonstrate the differences between implicit and explicit memory. One such method of differentiation is revealed through the depth-of-processing effect. In a 1981 study by Jacoby and Dallas, subjects were first given a list of words and asked to engage with them in some way. For some of these words, subjects were asked to interact with the words in a relatively superficial way, such as counting the number of letters in each given word. For one set of words, subjects performed tasks that required elaborative processing (denotation), such as answering questions about a word’s meaning. They were then given a test that assessed their ability to recognize whether they had seen the word in the studying part of the experiment. Because depth of processing aids in the explicit memory of a word, subjects showed better memory for the words that required elaborative processing on this test. When implicit memory was tested through flashing words on a screen and asking subjects to identify them, however, the priming effect was extremely similar for the words that involved elaborative processing as compared to the words that did not. This suggests that implicit memory does not rely on depth of processing as explicit memory does.[13]

The same study also tested the effect on memory by priming the words via an auditory test and then testing through visual stimuli. In this case, there was little decline in the priming effect when patients were tested explicitly by merely being asked whether they recognized hearing the word in the first part of the experiment. On the word identification test of implicit memory, however, the priming effect was severely reduced by the change in modality from the studying part to the testing part.[13]

A later study showed that attempts to interfere with the memory of a list of words significantly impacted subjects’ ability to recognize the words in a test of explicit recognition, but the interference did not have a similar effect on the subject’s implicit memory of the words.[14] Also, there seems to be no statistical correlation between a person’s ability to explicitly remember a list of words and their ability to subconsciously use the priming effect to aid performance in identifying previously seen words in tests of word completion.[15] All of these results strongly indicate that implicit memory not only exists, but exists as its own entity, with its own processes that significantly differ from explicit memory.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Schacter, D. L. (1987)."Implicit memory: history and current status". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 501-518.
  2. ^ Graf, P. & Mandler, G. (1984). Activation makes words more accessible, but not necessarily more retrievable. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 553-568.
  3. ^ Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977). Frequency and the conference of referential validity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16, 107-112.
  4. ^ Crowder, Robert G.; Mary Louise Serafine and Bruno H. Repp (April 1984). "Integration of Melody and Test in Memory for Songs". Cognition 16 (3): 285–303. 
  5. ^ Mandler, George; Jennifer Dorfman (1994). "Implicit and explicit forgetting: When is gist remembered?". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: 651–672. 
  6. ^ Begg, I.M., Anas, A., & Farinacci, S. (1992). Dissociation of processes in belief: source recollection, statement familiarity, and the illusion of truth. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 121, 446-458.
  7. ^ Cohen, N.J., Eichenbaum, H., Deacedo, B.S., & Corkin, S. (1985). Different memory systems underlying acquisition of procedural and declarative knowledge. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 444, 54-71.
  8. ^ Arwas, S., Rolnick, A., & Lubow, R.E. (1989). Conditioned taste aversion in humans using motion-induced sickness as the US. Behavioral Research Therapy, 27(3), 295-301.
  9. ^ Roediger, H.L., Nairne, J.S., Neath, I., & Surprenant, A.M. (2003). The nature of remembering: Essays in honor of Robert G. Crowder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(2), 396.
  10. ^ Brooks, D.N. & Baddeley, A.D. (1976). What can amnesic patients learn? Neuropsychologia, 14, 111-129.
  11. ^ Graf, P. & Schacter, D.L. (1985). Implicit and explicit memory for new associations in normal and amnesic subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11, 501-518.
  12. ^ Roediger, Henry L. (September 1990). "Implicit Memory: Retention without remembering". American Psychologist 45(9): 1043–1056. 
  13. ^ a b Jacoby, L.L. & Dallas, M. (1981). On the relationship between autobiographical and perceptual learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 110, 306-340.
  14. ^ Graf, P. & Schacter, D.L. (1987). Selective effects of interference on implicit and explicit memory for new associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 45-53.
  15. ^ Tulving, E., Schacter, D.L., & Stark, H.A. (1982). Priming effects in word-fragment completion are independent of recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 8(4), 336-342.
Basic concepts
Long-term memory
Short-term memory
Sensory memory
Forgetting
Research
Related concepts
Culture and society
Notable people
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_memory


Categories: Psychology

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