Motivated Forgetting: Strengths and Limitations

Motivated forgetting is forgetting that arises from a strong motive or desire to forget, usually because the experience is too disturbing. The two types associated with it are suppression and repression.

Suppression is making a deliberate conscious effort to keep information out of conscious awareness, while repression is unconsciously blocking a memory from entering conscious awareness.

Interference in memory occurs when other information prevents recall. The two types of interference are retroactive and proactive interference.

<p>Context cues are dependent on the environment or situation in which the information was encoded, while state-dependent cues are related to the internal state (mood) during encoding.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Retrieval failure occurs when information stored in long-term memory cannot be recalled due to lack of retrieval cues. Retrieval cues are hints or prompts that help recall information from long-term memory.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Strength: It explains why victims of abuse may be unable to recall traumatic experiences. Limitation: Research into motivated forgetting is often unethical as it can involve traumatizing individuals.</p> Signup and view all the answers