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abuse, and then recover the events years later as the therapist leads them to recall the
information—for instance, by using dream interpretation and hypnosis (Brown, Scheflin, &
Hammond, 1998). [15]
But other researchers argue that painful memories such as sexual abuse are usually very well
remembered, that few memories are actually repressed, and that even if they are it is virtually
impossible for patients to accurately retrieve them years later (McNally, Bryant, & Ehlers, 2003;
Pope, Poliakoff, Parker, Boynes, & Hudson, 2007). [16] These researchers have argued that the
procedures used by the therapists to “retrieve” the memories are more likely to actually implant
false memories, leading the patients to erroneously recall events that did not actually occur.
Because hundreds of people have been accused, and even imprisoned, on the basis of claims
about “recovered memory” of child sexual abuse, the accuracy of these memories has important
societal implications. Many psychologists now believe that most of these claims of recovered
memories are due to implanted, rather than real, memories (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). [17]
Overconfidence
One of the most remarkable aspects of Jennifer Thompson’s mistaken identity of Ronald Cotton
was her certainty. But research reveals a pervasive cognitive bias toward overconfidence, which
is the tendency for people to be too certain about their ability to accurately remember events and
to make judgments. David Dunning and his colleagues (Dunning, Griffin, Milojkovic, & Ross,
1990) [18] asked college students to predict how another student would react in various situations.
Some participants made predictions about a fellow student whom they had just met and
interviewed, and others made predictions about their roommates whom they knew very well. In
both cases, participants reported their confidence in each prediction, and accuracy was
determined by the responses of the people themselves. The results were clear: Regardless of
whether they judged a stranger or a roommate, the participants consistently overestimated the
accuracy of their own predictions.
Eyewitnesses to crimes are also frequently overconfident in their memories, and there is only a
small correlation between how accurate and how confident an eyewitness is. The witness who
claims to be absolutely certain about his or her identification (e.g., Jennifer Thompson) is not