A study from the University of South Florida suggests that people can mentally separate an artist from their work when they learn about the creator’s past misconduct. Rather than revising both memories in the same way, participants recalled feeling less admiration for the artist while largely preserving how much they had enjoyed the work in the past.
The researchers call this pattern “differential memory reconstruction.” Across five preregistered experiments, they examined how people’s reported past and present views changed after learning about transgressions by public figures. The examples included Bill Cosby, Ray Charles and John Lennon, across television and music.
Participants’ current evaluations of both the creator and the work fell after the revelations. But when asked about their earlier views, they reported a different pattern: their remembered admiration for the creator declined, while their recollection of enjoying the work remained relatively resistant to the new information.
The study, led by Sally MyungJin Shin of the University of South Florida with Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania and Gal Zauberman of Yale University, was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Its authors say the effect appeared across creative domains and different levels of transgression severity, and that additional tests addressed possible methodological explanations.
The findings distinguish present-day judgments from recollections of the past: the separation of creator and creation appeared in participants’ retrospective evaluations. The researchers suggest that this pattern may help people reconcile new information about an artist with cherished memories associated with their work.
Sources: Neuroscience News.