To succumb to the temptation and tell a touching story heard somewhere as one’s own… What is it – self-doubt, envy of others, or simple absent-mindedness? Psychologists tried to figure it out.
In the news, we regularly read about lawsuits and laws related to plagiarism. Disputes about the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don continue to this day: allegedly Mikhail Sholokhov found a manuscript in the field bag of a murdered Cossack and published it under his own name. Meanwhile, in our daily lives, most of us from time to time resort to everyday plagiarism – borrowing details of the biography of other people, funny or dramatic facts from their lives, passing them off as our own. A team of American psychologists led by Alan Brown conducted a survey to find out how often we appropriate other people’s memories and why we do it. The results turned out to be very eloquent: more than 60% of respondents at least once told other people’s stories, presenting themselves as their heroes, or attributed details of someone else’s biography to themselves. Half of the survey participants also indicated that they themselves were victims of such theft at least once (1).
What prompts us to consciously appropriate the memories of others? The authors of the study identified the most common causes:
- It’s easier! In oral communication, we strive for simplification and expressiveness. Therefore, it seems natural to us that the story will be interesting to listeners in itself, and the details – with whom it happened, under what circumstances we heard it – can be omitted.
- It makes us popular. An interesting or amusing story told in the right place can add to our attractiveness in the eyes of others. Interestingly, this reason was more often mentioned in the responses of men. In addition, men were generally more likely than women to admit to plagiarism.
- This story suits us. “If this didn’t really happen to me, then it could very well have happened,” most of the “kidnappers” argue. Life for us has a plot, logically connected and proceeding according to certain rules. We perceive better the information that does not contradict our experience or worldview. Therefore, other people’s stories are the same variants of a life scenario that, in our opinion, could or should have happened to us.
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- I’m ashamed of my origin
When it comes to the conscious appropriation of other people’s memories, everything is more or less clear. But among the survey participants there were also those who sincerely believed that the details they retold relate to their biography, and only after a while did they accidentally recall how things really were. What is behind this forgetfulness? To answer this question, we should remember the reconstructive nature of our memory. “Our personal memories are only marginally personal,” explains Ruth Ray, a narratologist at Wayne University in the United States. – Everything that we remember and relate to our own lives is a relatively believable version of real events. Our brain is constantly editing what we hear, see, and read, matching the information it has with the image of the person it seeks to create.”
“In some cases, it is not just about appropriating the memory of individual events, but also about copying the personality of another person,” explains anthropologist Aleida Assmann (Aleida Assmann). “Such cases are often associated with trauma, in which a person seeks to erase the memory of what happened by simply cutting out this fragment from his past and replacing it with someone else’s. For example, among the Germans after the end of World War II, such a traumatic “forgetfulness” was widespread: many of those who were members of the Nazi Party and participated in the crimes told their children that they were actually opposed from the very beginning and even participated in resistance movement. Gradually, they themselves began to sincerely believe in it” (2).
1. Applied Cognitive Psychology, online publication dated April 6, 2015.
2. A. Assman “The Long Shadow of the Past: Memorial Culture and Historical Politics” (New Literary Review, 2014)