Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (3): 602-607.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research on the Attributions to Prospective Memory Failure in Daily Life Situations

  

  • Received:2011-05-30 Revised:2011-09-26 Online:2012-05-20 Published:2012-05-20
  • Contact: Liu Wei

日常情境中前瞻记忆失败事件的归因

李燕1,2,祝春兰1,3,刘伟4,武莹莹1,1   

  1. 1.
    2. 上海师范大学 心理学系
    3. 上海青年管理干部学院
    4. 上海师范大学
  • 通讯作者: 刘伟
  • 基金资助:
    教育部人文社会科学研究青年基金;上海市重点学科

Abstract: There has been a growing trend of the study on prospective memory in human’s daily life in recent years. The present study is about how prospective memory failure in daily life situations is attributed and what factors affect the attribution. Based on the 6 attributions (poor memory, carelessness, reluctant, temporary emergency, no attention and force majeure) to prospective memory failure in daily life which were concluded from an open question, we developed a 12-scenario questionnaire to confirm the influence of the events' importance (importance, unimportance), relationship (parent-child relationship, friendship, stranger relationship) and failure (self, others), so the influence of the events' importance, relationship and prospective memory failure were investigated in a 2 × 3 × 2 design to explore how attributions to prospective memory failure were affected by these three factors. 124 college students were asked to attribute prospective memory failures in the 12 scenarios. It was found that (1)the most prospective memory failures were attributed to carelessness, and the fewest were attributed to reluctant; (2)the former 6 attributions can be summarized in three factors(unintentional, deliberate and objective) according to the results of EFA; (3)all the three factors--importance, relationship and failure affected the attribution of prospective memory failure: subjects more likely attributed blame to the unintentional in unimportant events, and to the deliberate in important events. When evaluating the seriousness of the events and the moral character of those who forgot things, the subjects tended to be stricter on their own and more tolerant to others, light duty and slight consequences in parent-child relationship were found as well as heavy responsibility and serious consequences in friendship when facing important events. In addition, more researches such as cross-cultural studies can be done in future to further clarify the attributions to prospective memory failure.

Key words: memory, prospective memory, attribution, scenario approach

摘要: 通过调查得到个体对日常情境中前瞻记忆失败的6种归因,在此基础上,编制12个日常生活中前瞻记忆失败的情境故事,让124名大学生被试进行归因,以确定事件重要性、人际关系和过错者身份对日常情境中前瞻记忆失败归因的影响。结果表明,被试对不重要事件的前瞻记忆失败归因为“主观无意”,重要事件归因为“主观故意”;在对事件后果和过错者人品判断时具有“对己严格”和“对人宽容”的归因特点;对包含亲子关系的前瞻记忆失败者进行责任较轻的归因与后果判断,在重要事件情境中,对包含朋友关系的前瞻记忆失败者进行责任较重的归因与后果判断。

关键词: 记忆, 前瞻记忆, 归因, 情境故事法

CLC Number: