Collaborative remembering reduces suggestibility: A study with the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale

Collaboration during the retrieval phase can have both negative and positive effects (referred to as collaborative inhibition and error pruning, respectively) on emotional and eyewitness memory. To further elucidate these issues, the present experiment used the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale to investigate the question of whether collaborative remembering reduced post-event suggestibility. Collaborative and nominal pairs listened to the GSS2, provided immediate and delayed (after 30 min) free recalls, and answered a series of leading questions before or after receiving a negative feedback about their performance. We found no evidence of collaborative inhibition in the immediate and delayed free recall tasks. Importantly, however, collaborative pairs produced less confabulated elements in the free recall tasks, were considerably less prone to give in to leading questions (both before and after receiving the negative feedback), and exhibited lower levels of Total Suggestibility, compared to both nominal and individual dyads. Taken together, these results support the conclusion that collaboration can have a beneficial influence on eyewitnesses’ accuracy, by strengthening their resistance to post-event suggestibility.