Skip to main content
Journal cover image

The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Huang, S; Stanley, ML; De Brigard, F
Published in: Memory & cognition
February 2020

People tend to believe that they truly are morally good, and yet they commit moral transgressions with surprising frequency in their everyday lives. To explain this phenomenon, some theorists have suggested that people remember their moral transgressions with fewer details, lower vivacity, and less clarity, relative to their morally good deeds and other kinds of past events. These phenomenological differences are thought to help alleviate psychological discomfort and to help people maintain a morally good self-concept. Given these motivations to alleviate discomfort and to maintain a morally good self-concept, we might expect our more egregious moral transgressions, relative to our more minor transgressions, to be remembered less frequently, with fewer details, with lower vivacity, and with a reduced sense of reliving. More severe moral transgressions might also be less central to constructions of personal identity. In contrast to these expectations, our results suggest that participants' more severe moral transgressions are actually remembered more frequently, more vividly, and with more detail. More severe moral transgressions also tend to be more central to personal identity. We discuss the implications of these results for the motivation to maintain a morally good self-concept and for the functions of autobiographical memory.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Memory & cognition

DOI

EISSN

1532-5946

ISSN

0090-502X

Publication Date

February 2020

Volume

48

Issue

2

Start / End Page

277 / 286

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Social Behavior
  • Self Concept
  • Morals
  • Mental Recall
  • Memory, Episodic
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Huang, S., Stanley, M. L., & De Brigard, F. (2020). The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions. Memory & Cognition, 48(2), 277–286. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-01009-0
Huang, Shenyang, Matthew L. Stanley, and Felipe De Brigard. “The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions.Memory & Cognition 48, no. 2 (February 2020): 277–86. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-01009-0.
Huang S, Stanley ML, De Brigard F. The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions. Memory & cognition. 2020 Feb;48(2):277–86.
Huang, Shenyang, et al. “The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions.Memory & Cognition, vol. 48, no. 2, Feb. 2020, pp. 277–86. Epmc, doi:10.3758/s13421-019-01009-0.
Huang S, Stanley ML, De Brigard F. The phenomenology of remembering our moral transgressions. Memory & cognition. 2020 Feb;48(2):277–286.
Journal cover image

Published In

Memory & cognition

DOI

EISSN

1532-5946

ISSN

0090-502X

Publication Date

February 2020

Volume

48

Issue

2

Start / End Page

277 / 286

Related Subject Headings

  • Young Adult
  • Social Behavior
  • Self Concept
  • Morals
  • Mental Recall
  • Memory, Episodic
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology