11397_Two sides to every story – The influence of audience on autobiographical memory

Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and
Dissertations
2020
Two sides to every story: The influence of audience on
Two sides to every story: The influence of audience on
autobiographical memory
autobiographical memory
Abby Sue Boytos
Iowa State University
Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd
Recommended Citation
Recommended Citation
Boytos, Abby Sue, “Two sides to every story: The influence of audience on autobiographical memory”
(2020). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 17953.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17953
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Two sides to every story: The influence of audience on autobiographical memory

by

Abby Boytos

A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE

Major: Psychology

Program of Study Committee:
Kristi Costabile, Major Professor
Kevin Blankenship
Jason Chan

The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program
of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this thesis. The Graduate College will
ensure this thesis is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred.

Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
2020

Copyright © Abby Boytos, 2020. All rights reserved.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
…………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii
ABSTRACT
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iv
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ……………………………………………………………………………..1
Audience Tuning ………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Shared Reality ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….3
Memory Biases
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………3
Autobiographical Memories
……………………………………………………………………………………….6
Social Influences of Autobiographical Memories
……………………………………………………. 6
Co-Construction …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
The Present Research ………………………………………………………………………………………………..9
CHAPTER 2. PILOT STUDY
………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Method
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12
Results …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..15
CHAPTER 3. EXPERIMENT 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………….19
Method
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..20
Results …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..27
Experiment 1 Discussion
………………………………………………………………………………………….47
CHAPTER 4. EXPERIMENT 2 ……………………………………………………………………………………….51
Method
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..53
Results …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..56
Experiment 2 Discussion
………………………………………………………………………………………….76
CHAPTER 5. GENERAL DISCUSSION ………………………………………………………………………….79
Limitations and Future Directions
……………………………………………………………………………..82
Conclusion
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..83
CHAPTER 6. REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………………….85
APPENDIX A. EXPERIMENT 1 ESSAY CODED VARIABLES
……………………………………….90
APPENDIX B. EXPERIMENT 2 ESSAY CODED VARIABLES
……………………………………….92

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my major professor, Dr. Kristi Costabile, who provided helpful
feedback and support during all stages of this project. I would also like to thank my committee
members, Dr. Kevin Blankenship and Dr. Jason Chan, for their hard work and feedback
throughout the course of this research.
In addition, I would like to thank the undergraduate research assistants in our lab who
helped collect and code the data for this project. I would also like to thank all of those who were
willing to participate in my experiments, without whom this research would not have been
possible. Lastly, I am appreciative of my friends, colleagues, and the department faculty and staff
at Iowa State who have helped make my time here a wonderful experience.

iv

ABSTRACT
Individuals describe their life experiences differently in response to their audience’s
verbal and behavioral cues, which in turn, influences how the teller connects the experiences to
the self-concept (Weeks & Pasupathi, 2011). Research on audience tuning (Higgins, 1992)
suggests that one reason audiences influence communication is that people are motivated to form
a shared reality with their audience (Echterhoff, Higgins, & Groll, 2005). Combining research on
autobiographical memory with that on audience tuning, the current project considers how
communicating about personal memories with others can affect how individuals describe and
reflect on their autobiographical memories, and how motivation to form a shared reality with
others affects this process. Experiment 1 examined the effects of audience perspective on event
memory descriptions, memory topic attitudes, and the self-typicality of the described memory. In
this experiment, participants were asked to think about a personal memory related to a specific
topic and then, were randomly assigned to write about that experience for an audience that had
either a positive or negative perspective on the topic or for an audience whose perspective is
unknown. Experiment 2 examined whether the audience-bias effect occurs as a function of
memory elaboration. Contrary to predictions, results of both experiments indicated that
participants’ memory descriptions and self-typicality of the memories were not biased in the
direction of their audience. However, as predicted, subsequent attitudes about the memory topic
and event memory perceptions were biased in the direction of the audience’s perspective.
Moreover, results of Experiment 2 indicated that the audience-bias effect was observed only
when communicators were permitted to elaborate on their memories, indicating the importance
of elaboration to the biasing process. In addition, across both experiments, the audience-bias
effect was more pronounced for individuals who experienced greater shared reality with their
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audience. This project highlights the importance of audience perspective and shared reality in
relation to communication about self-relevant experiences.
1
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
Autobiographical memories are recollections about personal past experiences. Like other
types of memory, autobiographical memories are influenced by social factors, such as audience,
that are salient at the time of retrieval (Marsh & Tversky, 2004; Tversky & Marsh, 2000). Thus,
autobiographical memories are episodic by nature, both in the sense that they represent a specific
time and space from one’s life and in the sense that each telling of the memory is influenced by
the context in which it is told. When one describes an autobiographical event, the memory
description becomes a product of the social interaction between the speaker and audience, which
can then influence subsequent retellings of the described event (Pasupathi, 2001). The current
project seeks to further understanding of the social aspects of autobiographical memory and how
audience may influence how individuals come to perceive past experiences.
Audience Tuning
Good communicators consider the background knowledge, opinions, and attitudes of
their audience and adjust their message accordingly (Higgins, 1992; Higgins, McCann &
Fondacaro, 1982). The term audience refers to the message recipient(s) and may refer to a single
or multiple individuals. At minimum, communicators must be able to establish a reference point
with their audience and attempt to meet the audience’s basic informational needs. People tend to
be quite adept at this. For example, even young children who were asked to describe objects
automatically adjusted their object descriptions for people depending on whether the individuals
were wearing a blindfold or not (Higgins, 1977).
This process of audience tuning, or adjusting one’s message according to the audience,
can have lasting effects on the communicator’s own perceptions of the message being
communicated (Echterhoff, Higgins & Groll, 2005; Echterhoff, Kopietz & Higgins, 2013;
Higgins, 1992). For instance, audience tuning has been shown to influence communicators’ own
2

memory of the message. Higgins (1992) first demonstrated this effect in a pair of studies. In the
first study, participants received ambiguous information about a target person, for example,
behaviors that can be characterized as either ‘stubborn’ or ‘persistent.’ Participants were then
asked to describe the target person to an audience who had either received the same information
or different information about the target person as they did. When participants believed the
audience received the same information, they were more likely to focus on interpretation of the
information rather than on description; however, when participants believed the audience
received different information, they were more likely to focus on description than on
interpretation of the information. As a result, participants who focused more on interpretation of
the information had less accurate memories about the message than did participants who focused
on simply describing the information.
Higgins’ (1992) second study explored how the attitude of one’s audience may influence
communication and thus, the communicator’s own beliefs. In a similar paradigm, participants
received a list of ambiguous, positive, and negative behaviors performed by a target person and
were asked to describe the target person to another student who ostensibly knew the target
person. Participants were told that the student either liked or did not like the target person.
Results of this study indicated that participants described the target person more positively when
they believed their audience liked the target person than when they believed their audience
disliked the target person. Consequently, participants’ own memory about the target person
became more congruent with the view of their audience, an effect that was still apparent two
weeks after the initial session. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that the process of
audience tuning results in biasing of the communicators’ own memories and perceptions of the
original information.
3

Shared Reality
One reason that people are so willing to adjust their messages for their audience is that
people are motivated to create a shared reality (Echterhoff, Higgins & Levine, 2009). Inherent in
human nature is the desire to share and validate our experiences with others. Many of the classic
studies within social psychology hinge on the desire for social verification (Asch, 1955;
Festinger 1950; Lewin, 1943; Sherif, 1937). One way that people fulfill this need for social
verification is to create a shared reality with others. A shared reality is a product of the motivated
process to experience commonality with others’ inner states about the world (Echterhoff et al.,
2009). Thus, a shared reality may occur during communication as people share information
about their own inner states relating to some target referent and, learn information about others’
inner states regarding the target referent (Hogg & Rinella, 2018).
Shared reality serves both epistemic (i.e., understanding the world) and relational needs
(i.e., connecting with others, Echterhoff, Higgins, Kopietz, & Groll, 2008). It is through the
sharing of internal states such as attitudes, feelings, and emotions that people are able to take
subjective experiences and create objective meaning and reality. According to Hardin and
Higgins (1996), “When an experience is recognized and shared with others in the process of
social interaction, it achieves reliability, validity, generality, and predictability” (p. 35-36). Just
as a scientific discovery lacking in reliability, validity, generality, or predictability would not be
upheld, it is argued that social experiences without a shared reality tend to be transitory and
ephemeral (Hardin and Higgins, 1996).
Memory Biases
Due to the innate desire to establish commonality, as described above, individuals often
express ideas that are contradictory to what they actually believe to be true (Asch, 1955; Larsen,
1974). Moreover, people tend to believe what they say even when it lacks truthfulness, an effect
4

that Higgins (1999) termed the saying-is-believing effect. This effect is demonstrated in the
classic audience tuning experiments described previously, where after describing a target person
to an audience that either likes or dislikes the target person, the communicator’s own memory of
the original information about the target person becomes biased toward the view of the audience.
Audience tuning effects on memory have been consistently demonstrated across a number of
studies (Echterhoff et al., 2005; Echterhoff et al., 2008; Echterhoff, Kopietz & Higgins, 2013;
Higgins, 1992; Higgins, 1999).
Audience tuning is also consistent with previous research that indicates that elaboration
of one’s beliefs through writing can alter one’s mental representations about the message
(Echterhoff et al., 2009) and can increase belief perseverance (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980).
To examine whether message elaboration (i.e., a coherent description of the message to the
audience) is necessary for the audience-bias effect to occur, participants read an ambiguous
passage about a target person and were told that they would be asked to describe the target
person to another student who ostensibly either liked or did not like the target person (Higgins,
Echterhoff, Crespillo, & Kopietz, 2007). They were told that their oral descriptions would be
recorded. However, only half of the participants actually described the target person and the
other half of participants were told that the voice recorder was being used by another
experimenter and that the study could go on without the description. Results demonstrated an
audience-bias effect only for participants who elaborated such that for those who actually
described the target person, more positive information was recalled when the audience liked the
target person than when the audience did not like the target person, an effect that was not
observed for those who did not provide oral descriptions.
5

The importance of message elaboration is also consistent with the elaboration likelihood
model of persuasion, which posits that the more people elaborate on an opposing argument, the
more likely the argument is to influence their attitudes (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). However,
unlike persuasion, audience tuning effects occur without an explicit attempt to change people’s
attitudes. Rather, one explanation for the saying-is-believing effect is that it represents a source
monitoring error (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993; Schachter & Singer, 1962), or a
misattribution of an outcome to something other than the legitimate source. Research shows that
misattribution of information can impair and distort memories (Belli, Lindsay, Gales &
McCarthy, 1994; Foley, Bays, Foy & Woodfield, 2015; McCabe & Geraci, 2009; Schacter,
1999). In the case of audience tuning, people may misattribute the biased message as stemming
from their own memory rather than stemming from the opinions of their audience (Higgins,
1998).
However, studies have also shown that the saying-is-believing effect is diminished under
conditions that undermine a successful shared reality (Echterhoff, Higgins, & Groll, 2005). For
instance, in one study participants were told that it was their audience’s task to identify a target
person, whom the audience ostensibly already knew, based on the participant’s description of
that target person. When communicators received feedback that the audience was not able to
identify the target person based on the description, indicating that a shared reality was not
achieved, communicators’ memories were not impacted by their audience. Therefore, it appears
that audience is most likely to alter subsequent perceptions about a message under circumstances
in which shared reality is created. Together, this evidence suggests that the audience-bias effect
results from a source-monitoring error that is most likely to occur when individuals are also able
to achieve shared reality.
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Autobiographical Memories
Audience tuning has been applied primarily to communication about social attitudes,
rather than to topics directly related to the self-concept. However, autobiographical memories are
also often recounted with others. Applying audience tuning to the study of autobiographical
memories can increase understanding of the processes through which people come to make sense
of their own life experiences. Autobiographical memories have important implications for how
people conceive who they are and how they came to be (Bluck, & Habermas, 2000). These
memories function to provide individuals with self-definition, social connection, and direction
for future behavior (Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin, 2005), functions that have been linked to
an increased sense of purpose and positive social relationships (Waters, 2014). In addition, the
manner in which people describe and reflect on their autobiographical memories has important
implications for development and well-being (Adler, Lodi-Smith, Philippe & Houle, 2016; Bauer
& McAdams, 2004). For instance, including descriptions of growth related goals when asked to
describe important autobiographical memories was indicative of higher levels of maturity and
personality development (Bauer & McAdams, 2004). Therefore, it is important for researchers to
carefully examine the factors that influence the formation, communication, and perception of
autobiographical memories.
Social Influences of Autobiographical Memories
Despite the intuitive notion that communication about one’s own personal past should be
less susceptible, than communication about attitudes or social judgments, to the influence of
social factors described above, research has shown that these memories are vulnerable to social
influences. For instance, research on flashbulb memories shows that even the most vivid and
traumatic memories can be distorted by subsequent information such as exposure to media or
conversations after the event (Hirst & Phelps, 2016). Similarly, research on eyewitnesses to a
7

crime has shown that early recall of the event can increase later susceptibility to misinformation
(Chan & Langley, 2011; Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009) and, in the case of identifying a
suspect, post-identification feedback that the correct suspect was identified alters subsequent
confidence and descriptions of the eyewitness’s memory (Wells & Quinlivan, 2009). Taken
together, research indicates that there are various ways in which external influences may reduce
accuracy and consistency of autobiographical descriptions over time, even when the memory
was vivid and experienced first-hand.
Co-Construction
Autobiographical memory scholars have begun to explore how audience influences the
conversational retellings of autobiographical memories. Pasupathi (2001) proposed the principle
of co-construction, which posits that both audience and communicators influence the way events
are recounted in conversation. This process is also influenced by the social context in which the
conversation occurs and is further constrained by prior tellings of the event. Moreover, the
process of co-construction has long-term implications on how the memory is subsequently
perceived and retold. To demonstrate the impact of audience on autobiographical retelling,
Marsh and Tversky (2004) conducted a daily diary study where participants recorded what,
when, and how they recounted events from their lives with others over a period of four weeks.
Participants reported details about the original event along with details about the retelling. In this
study, people reported naturally distorting sixty-one percent of their memory descriptions in
some way, and they distorted their memory descriptions in different ways depending on the
audience and the goal for telling.
Pasupathi and colleagues have shown that the behavior of the audience can also have
important consequences on the memory recollection (e.g., Pasupathi & Billitteri, 2015; Pasupathi
& Oldroyd, 2015; Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2009). For example, people tend to elaborate more when
8

describing a memory to an attentive audience than when describing a memory to a distracted
audience (Pasupathi & Billitteri, 2015; Pasupathi & Oldroyd, 2015; Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2009).
People are also more likely to include interpretive information when telling stories to an attentive
audience and are more likely to include factual information when telling stories to a distracted
audience (Pasupathi & Hoyt, 2009). These differences in retellings also lead to differences in
subsequent memory recall. For instance, in one study participants watched film clips in the
laboratory and then discussed the films with either attentive listeners or distracted listeners
(Pasupathi, Stallworth, & Murdoch, 1998). Participants who discussed with attentive listeners
elaborated more about the film clips, and also, remembered more information about the film
clips even after a three-week delay, as compared to participants who discussed with distracted
listeners.
An audience not only influences how memories are told but can also influence how
people connect past experiences to their current self. In one study, Jennings, Pasupathi, and
McLean (2014) examined conversations between romantic partners in which one person revealed
a previously undisclosed meaningful autobiographical memory to the other. The more responsive
the audience was, the more connections the speaker made between the events in the memory and
their current self (e.g., “I am a very compassionate person, which is why I helped my friend after
her break-up”). In another study, Pasupathi and Rich (2005) found that speakers evaluated an
experience that they initially reported as interesting to be less interesting after telling the
experience to a distracted friend than after telling the experience to a responsive friend. The
researchers concluded that a distracted audience undermined self-verification of the experience.
In addition, Weeks and Pasupathi (2011) found that audience responsiveness predicts story
elaboration, and that story elaboration is positively associated with self-integration, or the ability
9

to connect past events to the current self. Together, this work suggests that more engaged
audiences elicit more elaboration which in turn, prompts the speaker to make more connections
between the past experience and current self-perceptions.
By applying what is known about the process of audience tuning to communication about
self-relevant experiences, we may be able to better understand how the underlying processes of
interpersonal communication helps shape autobiographical memories. Previous work on
audience effects related to autobiographical memory has primarily focused on the observable
behavior of audience, yet it is possible that there are various other ways in which an audience can
influence the telling of a memory. It is also important to consider the ways in which describing
memories to others shapes how individuals come to make sense of those experiences and how
they might relate the experiences to the self-concept. The current project sought to explore how
the process of audience tuning might apply to autobiographical memories and how audience
perspective influences perceptions of real-life experiences.
The Present Research
The literature discussed thus far suggests that when communicating about an attitude
topic, communicators are often motivated to achieve a shared reality with their audience, and one
way they do this is by tuning their message to be more consistent with the perspective of the
audience (Echterhoff et al., 2009; Higgins, 1992; Higgins, McCann & Fondacaro). Moreover,
research has shown that message elaboration via written or verbal methods can influence mental
representations about the message (Echterhoff et al., 2009) and belief perseverance (Anderson et
al., 1980). More specifically, message elaboration to an audience whose perspective is known
leads to biases in the speaker’s own memory about the original message (Echterhoff et al., 2005;
Echterhoff et al., 2013; Higgins, 1992).
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The present project consisted of two experiments designed to examine whether similar
processes operate when individuals describe their personal autobiographical memories to an
audience. Experiment 1 examined whether audience perspective influences memory descriptions
and subsequent perceptions related to the memory and self. Experiment 2 explored the
underlying mechanism through which audience perspective may impact subsequent perceptions
by assessing whether both awareness of the audience’s perspective and elaborative writing in a
manner consistent with the audience’s perspective are necessary for the audience-bias effect to
occur.
In the first experiment, participants were asked to provide a written description of a
personal memory to an audience who either had a positive or negative perspective about the
topic, or whose perspective was unknown. It was predicted that people would tune their message
(i.e., frame their description of their own life experience) to be consistent with the perspective of
their audience. In particular, it was hypothesized that people would portray the experience more
positively when writing for an audience with a positive attitude about the topic than when
writing for an audience with a negative attitude about the topic. It was also hypothesized that
people would rate the experience as more positive and self-typical after describing it to an
audience with a positive perspective than when describing it to an audience with a negative
perspective.
The goal of Experiment 2 was to test the mechanism through which one’s audience
influences perceptions of one’s own life experiences. Previous work on audience tuning suggests
that mere awareness of the audience’s attitude is not sufficient to induce memory biases; rather,
communicators must actively elaborate on the message either verbally or through writing
(Higgins & Rholes, 1978). Therefore, Experiment 2 examined whether such conditions are also
11

necessary for individuals who are describing their own autobiographical experiences. It was
hypothesized that audience would be less likely to influence perceptions of the memory when the
communicator does not actually engage in the elaborative tuning process (i.e., exert the effort to
coherently describe the message to the audience). The importance of elaboration on one’s own
perceptions is consistent with research both on audience tuning (Higgins & Rholes, 1978) and on
co-construction of memory (Pasupath & Rich, 2005). In addition, it was hypothesized that the
relationship between elaboration and perceptions of the event would be mediated by perceived
shared reality such that those who elaborated in a manner consistent with that of their audience
would perceive greater shared reality with their audience which would in turn, lead to
perceptions of the memory that are consistent with the audience.
To be consistent with previous studies on audience tuning, it was important for the
present project to utilize topics deemed evaluatively ambiguous (Echterhoff, Kopietz, Higgins, &
Groll, 2008). Therefore, a pilot study was conducted to identify participants’ attitudes on various
topics and the extent to which participants could easily think of an autobiographical experience
related to each topic. In previous studies on audience tuning, researchers selected messages that
elicited mean ratings close to the midpoint on evaluative attitudes, and the current project used a
similar procedure for determining memory topics.

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CHAPTER 2. PILOT STUDY
Method
Participants
Participants were 89 undergraduate students from Iowa State University who received
course credit for participation. To be eligible to participate in this study, participants were
required to be at least 18 years of age. The sample included 53 women and 35 men. The majority
of the sample (75.3%) identified as Caucasian (1.1% Native American, 3.4% African-American,
10.1% Latino/Hispanic, 13.5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 1.1% Indian, and 2.2% identified as
Other), with a mean age of 19.81 years, SD = 1.48.
Procedure
Participants were seated at individual cubicles in the research laboratory. All measures
were completed on a computer. After consenting to participate in the study, participants were
asked a series of questions regarding their experiences related to six different topics. The topics
were procrastination, social media, multitasking, lying, bragging, and group work, and they
appeared in a randomized order. For each topic, participants were first provided with a definition
of the topic and then were asked questions assessing their own and others’ attitudes on the topic.
Because the primary experiments in this project examine how individuals might differentially
reflect on a specific life experience, participants in the pilot study were asked about their own
experiences with the topic such as the ease of which they could think of and describe a specific
experience related to the topic, the positivity of their experiences related to the topic, the
negativity of their experiences related to the topic, and the ease with which they can think of
positive, and separately, negative consequences related to the topic. Questions were grouped by
topic, with attitudes assessed first and personal experiences assessed second. After completing
13

measures for one topic (e.g., procrastination), participants were then presented with the next
topic. After completing the dependent measures, participants were asked demographic questions
(e.g., age, gender, racial/ethnic identity). After all measures were completed, participants were
thanked for their participation and debriefed.
Materials
Piloted memory topics. The memory topics were procrastination, social media,
multitasking, lying, bragging, and group work. For each topic, participants were provided with a
definition and were then asked a series of questions, described more fully below. The definitions
provided for the topics were as follows: a) Procrastination was defined as when a student delays
or postpones doing an academic assignment until a later time, b) Social media was defined as
any websites or applications that enable a person to create and share content or to participate in
social networking, c) Multitasking was defined as when a person tries to do more than one task at
a time, d) Lying was defined as purposefully communicating an untrue statement, e) Bragging
was defined as talking about accomplishments in an arrogant or prideful manner, and f) Group
work was defined as a product of working with others to collaborate on a project or assignment.
Attitudes. Attitudes about each memory topic were measured by having participants
indicate their response using a semantic differential scale assessing each topic. Scale endpoints
were: positive/negative, like/dislike, good/bad, desirable/undesirable, beneficial/harmful,
wise/foolish (Crites, Fabrigar, & Petty, 1994). For each word pair, participants rated the memory
topic on a 7-point bipolar continuum. Responses were averaged to create a total attitude score for
each topic (α = .88), with higher scores indicating a less favorable attitude toward the topic.
Because the subsequent experiments will involve participants writing about these topics
to others, it was also important to examine perceptions of others’ attitudes about these topics.
14

Therefore, using the same semantic differential scale, participants were also asked to indicate
how they perceived: a) a typical university student’s attitude toward each memory topic, and b) a
typical university professor’s attitude toward each memory topic. Scores were averaged across
items to create an overall perceived student attitude score for each topic and an overall perceived
professor attitude score for each topic.
Personal experience measures. To ensure that memory prompts used in the primary
studies would elicit experiences that participants could easily bring to mind, participants were
asked to indicate the degree to which they were able to recall a specific personal experience
related to each memory topic. First, participants were asked if they had personal experience with
the topic using a dichotomous yes/no response (e.g., Have you ever procrastinated on an
assignment?). Then, participants were asked to rate their ease of recollection (e.g., How easily
can you bring to mind a specific experience in which you engaged in procrastination?) and their
ease of description (e.g., How easy would it be for you to write a description of this experience
for an experimenter to read?), both items were assessed on a scale from 1 (not easily at all or
very difficult) to 7 (very easily or very easy).
Moreover, because the primary studies would manipulate whether the audience has a
positive or negative perspective on each topic, it was important to also ensure that selected
memory prompts would have the potential to elicit both positive and negative responses in the
research participants. Thus, participants also rated the positivity of their experience with the
topic (e.g., When you think of a time that you procrastinated on an academic assignment, how
positive is the memory?) on a scale from 1 (not at all positive) to 7 (extremely positive) and the
negativity of the experience was on a scale from 1 (not at all negative) to 7 (extremely negative).
Participants were then asked to list as many positive consequences that they could think of
15

related to each topic and as many negative consequences that they could think of related to each
topic, five free response boxes were provided for each type of consequence. Participants then
rated the ease with which they could think of positive consequences on a scale from 1 (very
difficult) to 7 (very easy) and the ease with which they could think of negative consequences on
a scale of 1 (very difficult) to 7 (very easy). After completing all measures for one topic,
participants would then move on to the next topic.
Results
Descriptive analyses were conducted for each memory topic to assess participants’
attitudes associated with each topic, and the ease with which participants were able to recall and
describe specific experiences related to the topics, and the degree to which participants assessed
their own experiences as positive or negative experiences.
Attitudes. The attitude scores for all memory topics are listed in Table 1. The topics that
had mean ratings closest to the midpoint (4.00) were considered to be more evaluatively
ambiguous or neutral topics, than were those that were closest to the scale endpoints. The most
neutral topics were group work, social media, and multitasking.
Table 1
Attitude scores from pilot study on all memory topics.

Self-Attitudes
Attitudes of a typical student
Attitudes of a typical professor

M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Group Work
3.42
1.49
3.30
1.63
2.10
0.96
Social Media
3.26
1.13
2.17
0.96
4.63
1.21
Multitasking
3.11
1.10
2.43
1.01
4.19
1.68
Lying
6.08
1.00
5.87
1.05
6.75
0.43
Bragging
5.79
0.95
5.66
1.25
5.81
1.18
Procrastination
6.15
0.90
5.74
1.09
6.85
0.46
16

Experience Measures. The majority of participants reported having experiences related
to group work (N = 86, 96.63%), multitasking (N = 88, 98.88%), bragging (N = 85, 95.51%), and
procrastination (N = 88, 98.88%). All participants (N = 89, 100%) reported experiences with
social media and lying. Additionally, all participants were able to list at least one positive and at
least one negative consequence for all topics.
Results on all topics for ease and valence of recall are presented in Table 2. Participants
indicated that they could also easily bring to mind and describe in detail experiences related to
group work, social media, and multitasking. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to
examine whether scores on these topics were statistically above the scale midpoint. The ease at
which participants could bring to mind a specific memory was significantly above the scale
midpoint (4.00) for group work (M = 6.10, SD = 1.51), t(88) = 13.15, p < .001, social media (M = 6.75, SD = 0.59), t(88) = 44.07, p < .001, multitasking (M = 5.36, SD = 1.53), t(88) = 8.37, p < .001, lying (M = 4.85, SD = 1.89), t(88) = 4.27, p < .001, and procrastination (M = 6.25, SD = 1.19) t(88) = 17.82, p < .001. The ease at which participants could bring to mind a specific memory was significantly below the scale midpoint for bragging (M = 3.56, SD = 1.93), t(88) = -2.14, p = .035. Similarly, the ease at which they reported being able to actually describe an experience related to the topic was statistically above the scale midpoint for group work (M = 5.96, SD = 1.46), t(88) = 12.63, p < .001, social media (M = 6.31, SD = 1.10), t(88) = 19.79, p < .001, multitasking (M = 5.04, SD = 1.65), t(88) = 5.97, p < .001, lying (M = 4.52, SD = 2.06), t(88) = 2.36, p = .020, and procrastination (M = 6.00, SD = 1.33) t(88) = 14.17, p < .001, but was again, significantly below the scale midpoint for bragging (M = 3.53, SD = 1.94), t(88) = - 2.30, p = .024. 17 Overall, the pilot study provided information about participants’ attitudes and personal experiences related to each of the topics. To be consistent with previous studies on audience tuning (Echterhoff, Kopietz, Higgins, & Groll, 2008), we chose to include the topics that participants rated attitudes as being closest to the scale midpoint. Additionally, it was important to choose topics for which participants reported being able to easily think of related experiences, for which they reported being able to easily describe related experiences, and for which they were able to think of both positive and negative consequences. Therefore, the topics that were chosen to be included in Experiment 1 were group work, social media, and multitasking. 18 Table 2 Descriptive results from pilot study on experience related measures for all memory topics. Group work Social media Multitasking Lying Bragging Procrastination Range M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD Easily bring to mind 6.10 1.51 6.75 0.59 5.36 1.53 4.85 1.89 3.56 1.93 6.25 1.19 1 to 7 Easily describe 5.96 1.46 6.31 1.10 5.04 1.65 4.52 2.06 3.53 1.94 6.00 1.33 1 to 7 Positive experience 4.18 1.66 5.40 1.25 4.56 1.29 2.90 1.60 3.61 1.46 2.85 1.66 1 to 7 Negative experience 4.16 1.62 3.35 1.67 3.84 1.28 5.26 1.47 3.99 1.43 5.34 1.39 1 to 7 Ease of Positive Consequences 4.99 1.61 5.54 1.23 4.04 1.59 2.92 1.69 2.86 1.46 2.72 1.75 1 to 7 Ease of Negative Consequences 5.38 1.68 5.38 1.44 5.07 1.25 5.80 1.21 4.90 1.64 6.19 0.99 1 to 7 19 CHAPTER 3. EXPERIMENT 1 Overview The goal of Experiment 1 was to examine the effects of audience perspective on memory descriptions and subsequent event memory perceptions, attitudes, and self-typicality. Experiment 1 also examined how communicator’s perceptions of developing a shared reality with the audience is related to these outcomes. In this experiment, participants were asked to think of a previous life experience related to a specific topic and to write a description of this experience for the study researchers. After selecting their memory, but before writing the description, participants were randomly assigned to one of three audience conditions: 1) the study researchers were described as having a positive perspective of the memory topic (e.g., They believe that multi-tasking can be a positive and beneficial experience for undergraduate students.), 2) the study researchers were described as having a negative perspective of the memory topic (e.g., They believe that multi-tasking can be a negative and harmful experience for undergraduate students.), or 3) the perspective of the study researchers was not provided. After providing a written description of their experience, shared reality, event memory perceptions, attitudes toward the general topic, and self-typicality of the memory were assessed. Based on the audience tuning literature, it was expected that participants writing for an audience with a positive perspective would describe their memory more positively and recall the experience as being more positive and more typical of how they usually behave than participants writing for an audience with a negative perspective. Additionally, it was expected that participants writing for the audience with a positive perspective would have more positive attitudes about the memory topic than participants writing for the audience with a negative