Social identity improves collaborative memory: a motivational approach

Collaboration in memory leads to a mixed effect of both impairment of correct recall (e.g. collaboration inhibition) and decrease of false recall (e.g. error pruning). Social identity is important in the formation of social memory, yet it is unclear how it affects collaborative memory. Here, we investigated the effect of social identity on collaborative inhibition and error pruning in a motivational approach. In experiment 1, we categorized participants into different groups and measured their subjective social identity in the following collaborative recall. The results showed that the subjective social identity eliminated collaborative inhibition and produced error pruning for in-group members. To identify the motivational components of social identity’s effect, we measured social and epistemic motives of group members in a cooperative or a competitive collaborative recall in experiment 2. The results showed that the social motive of cooperation reduced collaborative inhibition in groups with high epistemic motive. In addition, cooperation increased groups’ error pruning. These findings highlight the importance of social identity and its motivational factors on improving the performance of collaboration memory. Overall, the current study enriches the literature of collaborative memory from a motivational perspective, and suggests important implications for judiciary or other social group discussions that require information accuracy.