Reproductive Processing Effect in Adaptive Memory
Creators: name: Yildirim, Bugay
name: Kurdoglu-Ersoy, Pinar
name: Kapucu, Aycan
name: Tekozel, Mert
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Cognitive Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology

description: The survival processing effect is the finding of better memory for items processed in terms of survival relevance than those processed in non-survival contexts (Nairne et al., 2007). While the survival processing advantage is known to be robust, the effects of alternative fitness-related domains on memory are not as extensively studied as the survival processing. In the present study, we aimed to investigate and compare the effects of survival processing and jealousy processing on recall memory. Additionally, the current study investigated potential sex differences in memory for sexual and emotional jealousy contexts. Adopting the survival processing paradigm, we used 4 scenarios in total. In addition to the original survival and pleasantness (control) conditions, we constructed two infidelity scenarios with respect to the adaptive variants of infidelity, namely sexual and emotional infidelity, using the well-established cues to infidelity (Shackelford &amp; Buss, 1997) to provoke sexual and emotional jealousy. We believed that this would enable us to evoke a reproductive mindset as strong as the survival mindset. We expected to replicate the survival processing effect on memory. In general, we expected that infidelity scenarios would lead to, if not comparable to the survival, better memory performance than the pleasantness control. Following the findings from the evolutionary psychology literature (e.g., Schützwohl &amp; Koch, 2004), we expected that men would recall more words processed in the sexual infidelity condition than the pleasantness condition. Conversely, it is expected that the emotional infidelity scenario would lead to better memory in women compared to the pleasantness condition. The experiment consisted of three phases; the rating task (study phase), the filler task, and the surprise recall test. In a 2 (Sex) x 4 (Processing Condition) design with repeated measures on the second factor, participants rated 10 words per condition (40 words in total) in the rating phase. The task in this part was to provide relevance ratings (or pleasantness for the control condition) for each word in the given processing condition. The order of the blocks in the rating task was counterbalanced while 10 words to be presented in each block with respect to the processing condition were randomly selected for each participant. Following the rating, task participants performed a 3-minute filler task in which simple arithmetical questions were addressed. Next, in the surprise recall test, participants were asked to write down all the words that they could remember from the first phase of the experiment. This final part lasted for 10 minutes, and participants were instructed to use all the time to recall as many words as possible. In the end, participants were addressed a forced-choice question asking which one of the infidelity scenarios they found more upsetting. The results of the current study showed support for the survival processing effect with words processed in the survival condition were recalled better compared to all other conditions. This finding was regardless of the block order. Contrary to our expectations, we found no evidence in favor of the jealousy processing with infidelity scenarios leading to a memory performance comparable to the pleasantness control, significantly lower than the survival condition. In addition, words processed in the survival and pleasantness conditions were given higher ratings than those rated for their relevance to sexual and emotional infidelity. Moreover, word rating response times were significantly longer in the survival condition compared to others. However, this was found to stem from the participants who received the survival condition as the first block in the rating task, suggesting that this difference in response times unlikely contributed to the survival advantage. Despite our effort to establish a match between the survival scenario and the infidelity scenarios we failed to find evidence supporting a jealousy processing effect on memory. As a consequence, we argue that there is no unique mnemonic benefit of jealousy processing. References: Nairne, J. S., Thompson, S. R., &amp; Pandeirada, J. N. S. (2007). Adaptive memory: Survival processing enhances retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 33(2), 263–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.33.2.263 Schützwohl, A., &amp; Koch, S. (2004). Sex differences in jealousy: The recall of cues to sexual and emotional infidelity in personally more and less threatening context conditions. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(4), 249–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.03.006 Shackelford, T. K., &amp; Buss, D. M. (1997). Cues to infidelity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(10), 1034–1045. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672972310004