Memory lane and morality

How childhood memories promote prosocial behavior

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6202898
AutoresFrancesca Gino (0000-0002-9794-482X), Daniel Comino Lucendo (autor correspondente), Sreedhari D Desai (0000-0003-1068-0436)
Ano2012
Volume102
Fascículo4
Páginas743-758
Data de publicação2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
EditoraAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/a0026565
PMID22181000
OpenAlexW22181000
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas16

Although research has established that autobiographical memory affects one's self-concept, little is known about how it affects moral behavior. We focus on a specific type of autobiographical memory: childhood memories. Drawing on research on memory and moral psychology, we propose that childhood memories elicit moral purity, which we define as a psychological state of feeling morally clean and innocent. In turn, heightened moral purity leads to greater prosocial behavior. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall childhood memories were more likely to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants in a control condition, and this effect was mediated by moral purity. In Experiment 2, the same manipulation increased the amount of money participants donated to a good cause, and both implicit and explicit measures of moral purity mediated the effect. Experiment 3 provides further support for the process linking childhood memories and prosocial behavior through moderation. In Experiment 4, we found that childhood memories led to punishment of others' ethically questionable actions. Finally, in Experiment 5, both positively valenced and negatively valenced childhood memories increased helping compared to a control condition

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