Retrieval-induced forgetting in a social task

Clinical researchers suggest that post-event thinking functions to negatively bias event recall for socially anxious participants. We used a repeated retrieval paradigm to examine the effects of post-event retrieval on memory for social information. Undergraduate participants ( = 214) engaged in an impromptu public speaking task and received a standardised mixture of positive and negative feedback on their speech. Participants in the experimental condition were instructed to repeatedly retrieve the negative feedback items whereas participants in the control condition completed a control task. Both groups were asked to recall the feedback after five minutes and after one week. Results indicated that the experimental group displayed the hypothesised retrieval-induced forgetting effect. In addition, repeated retrieval predicted valence change in that participants recalled the non-retrieved positive feedback items less positively over time. The retrieval-practice effects were distinct from self-reported post-event processing. Contrary to clinical theories, social anxiety did not moderate retrieval-induced forgetting or recall bias. Instead, all participants displayed retrieval-related negatively biased recall.