Updating social knowledge via episodic memory prediction errors

Abstract

Impressions of other individuals—central components of our social schemas—are crucial for predicting how they will behave in social interactions. In some of these interactions, these predictions align with the way an individual behaves, but in other situations, the individual behaves in ways that contradict predictions of the associated schema. In the present study, we sought to understand the impact of these two scenarios on the attached social schema, focusing on the role of episodic memory encoding of such scenarios in driving schema change. Across two behavioral experiments, healthy young participants formed positive or negative impressions (schemas) about social targets. To test the formation of these schemas, they rated the likelihood that these targets would engage in a series of positive and negative social behaviors. Next, participants encoded narratives depicting these targets engaging in behaviors that were either congruent or incongruent with the valence of the associated schema. Finally, participants rated again the likelihood of each target engaging in positive and negative behaviors. Across both experiments, we found that updating, as measured by changes in the likelihood ratings, was influenced by the strength of memory encoding of the intervening narrative, particularly when that narrative was incongruent with a negative schema. These results emphasize the crucial role of episodic memory in updating our social schemas, or expectations of other individuals, and suggest that we more readily update these schemas to have a more positive impression of others.