Social aspects of memory (and decision-making)

In this seminar I will discuss my five main areas of research. First, I will talk about my research examining socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). SS-RIF is the phenomenon by which the selective retrieval on the part of a speaker, in the course of a conversation, can induce both the speaker and the listener to forget related information. Second, I will talk about my research examining how families transmit memories from one generation to the next through conversation. My present research focuses on World War II memories in Belgium and 9/11 memories in the USA. Third, I’ve recently begun a research project examining how social media (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) shape the way individuals and groups remember the past. At the moment, my lab is extending the SS-RIF to instances of posting pictures on Instagram. Fourth, I will discuss my research examining the ways in which prejudice and dehumanization influence punishment decisions based on the crime, label, involvement with the criminal justice city and race of the suspect. Lastly, I will discuss my research examining how various social memory phenomenon (social contagion: spread of false information; collaborative inhibition: groups remember less than their potential; and SS-RIF) may help us better understand the ways in which jury deliberations shape what the jurors remember about the facts of a trial and, in turn, their decisions about guilt and innocence. In general, these areas of research converge around the importance of individual and collective memories and decision-making and their relevance for, not just individual and collective identity, respectively, but forensic settings as well.

* Charlie Stone is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (New York, USA)