A Self-Reference Exercise for Teaching Life Expectancy

Abstract

A group of volunteer general psychology students completed a self-reference exercise on life expectancy. The exercise involved adding or subtracting years from their life expectancy based on personal habits (e.g., smoking) and characteristics (e.g., being firstborn) that influence life expectancy. Prior work has shown that individuals remember items better when they are referenced to their personal lives. Students who completed this exercise performed significantly better on a later test than students who read about the same factors even though no prior performance difference between these 2 groups was evident. The results suggest further uses of self-reference exercises to improve student memory and test performance in other classes.