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  5. Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past

Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past

File(s)
LaTour25_Make_My_Memory.pdf (449.28 KB)
Permanent Link(s)
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/72542
Collections
SHA Articles and Chapters
Author
Braun, Kathryn A.
Ellis, Rhiannon
Loftus, Elizabeth F.
Abstract

Marketers use autobiographical advertising as a means to create nostalgia for their products. This research explores whether such referencing can cause people to believe that they had experiences as children that are mentioned in the ads. In Experiment 1, participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with Mickey Mouse as a child. Relative to controls, the ad increased their confidence that they personally had shaken hands with Mickey as a child at a Disney resort. The increased confidence could be due to a revival of a true memory or the creation of a new, false one. In Experiment 2, participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with an impossible character (e.g., Bugs Bunny). Again, relative to controls, the ad increased confidence that they personally had shaken hands with the impossible character as a child at a Disney resort. The increased confidence is consistent with the notion that autobiographical referencing can lead to the creation of false or distorted memory.

Date Issued
2002-01-01
Keywords
autobiographical advertising
•
referencing
•
false memory
•
distorted memory
Related DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.1000
Rights
Required Publisher Statement: © Wiley. Final version published as: Braun, K. A., Ellis, R., & Loftus, E. F. (2002). Make my memory: How advertising can change our memories of the past. Psychology & Marketing, 19(1), 1-23. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Type
article

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