The effect of emotional valence of stimulus on memory conformity: The role of affective empathy

Memory conformity occurs when people's memory is affected by each other. It has also been shown that our memory is better for stimuli with the emotional valence. People's empathy also affects the extent to which they are affected by emotional stimuli. This study aimed to investigate the effect of emotional valence of to be remembered images on memory conformity and the role of empathy in this regard.

400 randomly selected female university students screened for empathy based on statistical power analysis, the final sample of 60 people was randomly selected from the upper and lower quartiles of empathy scores. The Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (QMEE) and a recognition memory test using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was used to collect data.

The results of one-way repeated measures ANOVA and Split-Plot (mixed) analysis of variance (SPANOVA) for data analysis showed that memory conformity occurred in images with negative emotional valence less than other levels of emotional valence (p<0.005). There was no significant difference between participants with high and low empathy in terms of memory conformity in images with different emotional valence.

Although there was no difference in the degree of memory conformity between high and low empathy individuals, individuals experience memory conformity at all emotional valences. This conformity is greater in information without emotional capacity.