Schedule of Events | Symposia

Framing the Past, Shaping the Future: The Power of Political Identity and Media Bias in Collective Memories and Future Thoughts

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Nawel Cheriet^1,2,3 (nawel.cheriet@uliege.be), Christine Bastin^1,2,3; ¹GIGA Research, CRC Human imaging, University of Liège, Belgium, ²Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Liège, Belgium, ³F.R.S.-Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Bruxelles, Belgium

Political identity plays a pivotal role in shaping how individuals perceive, process, and remember information. It also influences media consumption, guiding people toward sources that align with their beliefs. While its impact on media engagement is well-documented, less is understood about its role in shaping shared memories and collective future thoughts, especially when individuals encounter media that either supports or challenges their perspectives. This study examined how political identity and media congruence affect the similarity of shared memories and future projections. Seventy-five American participants, grouped by left- or right-leaning political views, were exposed to the same public event news from either CNN or FOX, creating congruent or incongruent conditions with their beliefs. Participants then recalled the news content and envisioned future scenarios related to the topic. Using natural language processing techniques to assess narrative similarity, the study revealed that memories were more consistent than future projections across all participants. Interestingly, participants exposed to incongruent media displayed greater memory similarity than those exposed to congruent media, suggesting that conflicting information encourages deeper cognitive engagement. Right-leaning participants exhibited less similarity in future projections than left-leaning participants, particularly in incongruent media conditions. These findings highlight the intricate relationship between political identity, media exposure, and cognitive processing. They illustrate how exposure to conflicting information can shape both collective memory and future thinking, offering fresh insights into the dynamic processes that govern how people recall the past and envision the future in polarized environments.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic