Self-reference and group membership: Evidence for a group-reference effect

Two experiments were designed to explore whether encoding information in reference to a group would facilitate the later recall of that information to the same extent as encoding with reference to the self. In both experiments, participants encoded adjectives with reference to the self, semantic properties, or a group and were subsequently given a surprise-free recall test. In Experiment 1 (N=37), the participants' university served as the reference group. In Experiment 2 (N = 41), the participants ' family served as the reference group. In both experiments, self-reference resulted in better recall than semantic processing, replicating the typical self-reference effect (SRE). More importantly, strong evidence for a group-reference effect (GRE) was found in that group-reference resulted in better recall than semantic processing and in fact facilitated recall to the same extent as self-referencing. The existing explanations (schemas, organization, elaboration, mental cueing, and evaluation) for the SRE were compared with regard to their viability in accounting for the GRE patterns. We discuss additional features that may be important in the explanation of the SRE and suggest future directions for research on group-referencing.