Confirming false memories: social construction of "useful" meanings.
Data from a recent case study is presented to illustrate how false memories are socially constructed in the present and how they fulfill a function for the system in which such construction takes place. Based on the dubious assumption that hypnotic age-regression brings forth the historical "truth" about past events, hypnosis was misused as part of this construction, even while the outcome of the regression had to be distorted to provide confirmation of the particular memory.
Fourie
D P
DP
Department of Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. fouridp@alpha.unisa.ac.za
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012043:Regression, Psychology