DISTORTION OF RECOLLECTIONS BY IMPLICIT T HEORIES - THE COHERENCE BETWEEN CURRENT JUDGMENTS AND EARLIER JUDGMENTS TOWARD ONESELF AND THE PARTNER

Do current attitudes towards oneself and the partner distort recollect ions of earlier attitudes? We assume that the reconstruction of earlie r judgments is guided by similarities and differences with current jud gments. If the respondents assume that the attitude variables in quest ion are stable over time, the recollected attitudes are expected to be distorted in the direction of current attitudes. We interviewed 83 re spondents, who lived in a romantic relationship, twice within six week s with respect to own attitudes, partner variables and relationship va riables. In an earlier study it was shown that respondents entertain i mplicit theories which say that these variables are stable over time. Results indicated that respondents overestimated similarities between current and past attitudes. This consistency effect was stronger when the respondents misperceived the amount of actual change of a variable and when they overestimated the stability of the variable, respective ly.