THE EFFECTS OF SELF-BELIEFS ON REPEATED EFFORTS TO REMEMBER

The role of motivation in producing hypermnesia (increased recall over successive efforts) was examined in two studies using false feedback to manipulate subjects' beliefs about their ability to perform memory tasks. The first study demonstrated that feedback that heightened subj ects' performance expectancies led to increased hypermnesic recall. Th e second study demonstrated that this feedback-induced hypermnesia was due to subjects' increased likelihood of persisting in their search f or initially inaccessible items.