The influence of the neuroticism personality trait on the susceptibility to false memories

Abstract

False memories are recollections of events that in fact never happened. However, the question is which characteristics and personality traits could affect the susceptibility to this kind of memory distortion. The present study tested 150 college students to investigate the effect of the neuroticism personality trait (based on the Five Factor Model) on the susceptibility to false memories. The Factorial Scale of Emotional Adjustment/Neuroticism and the brazilian version of the Lists of Associated Words procedure, containing words of neutral and emotional nature (positive and negative) were used to assess memory performance. Our findings showed that individuals with high levels of neuroticism presented more false memories and a better remembrance forwords with negative emotional valence.