The good, the bad, and Disney: Planting false beliefs about Disneyland

Previous research has shown that people can be led to falsely remember both unpleasant and pleasant events in their childhood and that these false beliefs and memories can have consequences. Yet, no study has systematically explored whether it is easier to plant false beliefs and memories for comparable positive or negative events. Therefore, the current studies examined whether it was easier to plant positive or negative false beliefs and memories, whether there were differences between subjects' positive and negative false beliefs and memories, and whether subjects' false beliefs and memories would affect their later thoughts and actions.;Specifically, in Study 1, subjects were exposed to fake newspaper articles in order to lead them to believe that they had had a good or bad childhood experience at Disneyland involving the Goofy character. Critically, the event itself (being carried away by Goofy) was nearly identical in each condition, but the surrounding context is what made the event either positive or negative. To briefly preview the results, the data revealed that it was easier to plant positive false beliefs and memories than negative false beliefs and memories. Perhaps this result was due to the possibility that the positive event seemed more plausible. To test for this, Study 1b explored the role of plausibility. The results showed that plausibility alone did not account for the greater ease of planting a false positive versus false negative event into memory.;Another major finding was that negative false beliefs and memories had social consequences for subjects' adult lives; those who came to believe that they had experienced the inappropriate encounter with the Goofy character were less likely to want to pose for a photograph with the character on their next trip to Disneyland. Both positive and negative false beliefs and memories were described as emotional, and were rated similarly in phenomenological detail. Taken together, these findings extend our understanding of the factors associated with the development of and consequences of positive and negative false beliefs and memories.