Investigating the Impact of Explicit and Implicit Memory on Decisions to Approach or Avoid Social Targets

Research shows many social factors influence decisions to approach or avoid social targets, but less research has directly investigated the impact of cognitive factors like memory. The goal of the current study was to investigate how both explicit and implicit memory for initial impressions influence approach/avoidance decisions and to test whether mouse-tracking could be used to measure the impact of implicit memory. In addition, this study examined the extent memory strength influenced the impact of memory on approach/avoidance decisions. In this investigation, participants viewed social targets represented by a picture and a trait-implying behavior and formed positive or negative impressions of targets viewed once (single presentation) or twice (double presentation). Participants completed explicit memory measures followed by an approach/avoidance task using a computer mouse as the mouse trajectory was tracked as a possible indicator of implicit memory. Results provided continued support for the impact of explicit memory on approach/avoidance decisions, such that correctly remembering positive impressions led to approach decisions and correctly remembering negative impressions led to avoidance decisions. Additionally, results showed a stronger impact of explicit memory for double- than single-presentation targets, suggesting that stronger memories have a larger effect on approach/avoidance decisions. The results did not support the impact of implicit memory on approach/avoidance decisions nor use of mouse-tracking to measure the impact of implicit memory. These findings add to the limited research exploring the impact of memory on approach/avoidance decisions, but continued work is needed to better understand memory and its influence on social processes.