Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to one of these six conditions. Each subject saw pictures of individuals with tattoos and piercings, and was then asked to create a story about each of these individuals using 15 adjectives from a list of 60. Half of the participants were initially warned not to allow previously held beliefs about body art to affect their passages, while the other half were not. Also, participants were given prior knowledge that would either feed stereotypic thoughts, counter those thoughts, or were told nothing. We measured the number of negative adjectives included in the descriptions written by the subjects.
Data collection is currently in progress.
When witnesses are forced to confabulate misinformation in response to an interviewer s questions about nonexistent events, they are forced to both create a response and commit to it. Participants witnessed a video clip and were assigned to one of three experimental conditions. All experimental conditions were exposed to the same set of false-event questions. Participants in the forced confabulation condition were forced to generate misinformation in response to an interviewer s questions about false events. Participants in the forced choice condition were forced to choose between two experimenter provided alternatives and participants in the passive condition simply read an answer that was provided.