Applied Cognitive Psychology, Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 675–681 (2011)Published online 5 August 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.1740

Attitudes about Memory Dampening Dr

ugs Depend on Context and Country

ERYN J. NEWMAN1, SHARI R. BERKOWITZ2, KALLY J. NELSON2, MARYANNE GARRY1

and ELIZABETH F. LOFTUS2*1Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand2University of California, Irvine, USA

*CorrCrimiof CaE-ma

Copy

Summary: When people take drugs such as propranolol in response to trauma, it may dampen their bad memories – temperingrecall of a traumatic event. We examined people’s attitudes toward these drugs. Americans and New Zealanders read about ahypothetical assault inserting themselves into a scenario as a victim attacked while serving on a peace keeping mission (soldierrole) or while walking home from a job as a restaurant manager (civilian role). Then they told us whether they should receive amemory dampening drug, and whether they would want to take a memory dampening drug. Subjects were negatively disposedtowards a memory dampening drug, but Americans who adopted the soldier role were more in favor of having access to the drugthan those who adopted the civilian role. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to an increasing trend in‘cosmetic neurology’, medicating with the goal of enhancement, rather than therapy. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Distressing memories do not simply feel terrible in the

moment; they are associated with an array of psychological

consequences, such as dysphoria, depression and low self-

esteem (Berntsen & Rubin, 2006, 2007; Ross & Wilson,

2002). Profoundly distressing memories are a hallmark of

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; APA, 1994). PTSD

produces mental anguish, and significant costs to sufferers,

their families, and society (Kessler, 2000; McNally,

2003a,b). In some cases, people with PTSD come to feel

as though they are haunted by those memories, which can

intrude on their everyday thinking, surface in flashbacks or

nightmares, or set off exaggerated physiological responses.

One Holocaust survivor said his awful memory is ‘in front of

me. I can’t get rid of it’ (Langer, 1993: p. 96; see also Kuch &

Cox, 1992; Wagenaar & Groeneweg, 1990). Similarly,

Berntsen and Rubin (2008) found that Danish tourists who

survived the 2004 Indonesian tsunami experienced intrusive

memories of escaping the wave.

These studies and others suggest that distressing memories

keep us stumbling on unhappiness (with apologies to Gilbert,

2006). One interesting question that arises from this research

is whether people would be interested in taking a drug that

could dampen – that is, lessen the emotion associated with

and diminish content of – a traumatic event? In what context

should people have access to such a drug? These are the

questions we address in the experiment described here.

Given the myriad bad consequences associated with

horrible memories, it is little wonder that scientists have

investigated drugs that might blunt them. Memory dampen-

ing drugs, such as the beta-blocker propranolol, may offer

some relief by disrupting the biological processes that

make emotional memories so intensely remembered in the

first place. Emotionally arousing experiences – positive or

negative – cause the release of adrenal stress hormones

that enhance some aspects of memory (see McGaugh, 2000,

espondence to: Elizabeth F. Loftus, Psychology & Social Behavior,nology, Law& Society, Cognitive Sciences, School of Law, Universitylifornia, Irvine, 2393 Social Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697-7080 USA.il: eloftus@uci.edu

right # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

for a review). Propranolol blocks epinephrine receptors,

and in doing so prevents memory enhancement (Cahill,

Prins, Weber, & McGaugh, 1994; McGaugh, 2004). In

a well-known study, Cahill et al. (1994) found that

giving people propranolol destroyed the typical memory

enhancement of emotional experiences, impairing both

recall and recognition of emotional memories relative

to people who did not take propranolol (see also Cahill,

Pham, & Setlow, 2000; Reist, Duffy, Fujimoto, & Cahill,

2001; Roozendaal, Quirarte, & McGaugh, 1997). Taken

together, this research suggests that propranolol can

dampen memory for emotional material and raises

an intriguing question: would propranolol dampen

memories for a traumatic event?

In fact, recent studies suggest that if people take

propranolol after a traumatic experience, they suffer fewer

psychological after-effects. In one study, emergency room

patients took propranolol or a placebo shortly after a

traumatic experience; 1 month later, propranolol patients had

fewer PTSD symptoms than placebo patients (Pitman et al.,

2002). In another study, PTSD patients described their

trauma in writing, and then took propranolol or a placebo.

One week later, patients listened to a recording of their

descriptions while instruments gathered data on their

physiological stress responses. Propranolol patients showed

lower stress responses than placebo patients (Brunet, Orr,

Tremblay, Robertson, Nader, & Pitman, 2008). Although

neither study measured changes in memory, we might

speculate that one mechanism responsible for the reduction

in PTSD symptoms is what Cahill et al. (1994) found:

propranolol makes people remember less, and makes their

emotional memories more like mundane memories.

As advances in neuroscience make access to memory

dampening drugs more likely, some have raised both legal

and ethical concerns about who should have access to them

and in what circumstances (Kolber, 2008; President’s

Council on Bioethics 2003). Moreover, for all the good

memory dampening drugs might do to relieve suffering, we

still do not know if people actually want to take these drugs,

or even want the choice to take them.

1Note that although cell sizes were uneven, for all effects we report, the Fmax

test showed acceptable ratios of cell variances (Tabachnik & Fidell, 2007).

676 E. J. Newman et al.

But there are good reasons to expect that people would

indeed want – at the very least – the choice to take a memory

dampening drug. For one thing, we know that people often

like to have choices. Simply being able to exercise a choice –

rather than being constrained – can result in many positive

psychological outcomes, including boosting feelings of

control and motivation (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; Szrek &

Baron, 2007; cf. Iyengar & Lepper, 2000). Second, people

tend to overestimate how badly they would feel after a

hypothetical negative event, which may lead them to

overestimate their need for a memory dampening drug.

What leads people to overestimate? Research suggests that

people do not always consider other factors in their lives that

contribute to happiness – instead, they overemphasize the

importance of the target event (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007). In

one study, people who imagined suffering from kidney

disease predicted they would feel quite negative – even

though people who actually suffered from kidney disease

reported feeling positive (Riis, Loewenstein, Baron, Jepson,

Fagerlin, & Ubel, 2005). Taken together, these studies

suggest that people would want to take the drug, or at least

want the choice to take it.

On the other hand, there are also good reasons to expect

that people would want to avoid a memory dampening drug.

For instance, people tend to imagine glowing, positive

futures (Szpunar, 2010; cf. Wilson & Ross, 2003). In one

study, when people generated personally meaningful future

events they were slower at generating negative events than

positive events, and thought the negative events less likely

(Newby-Clark & Ross, 2003). Put another way, positive

future events might come to mind more easily – more

fluently – and therefore feel truer, and more likely (see Alter

& Oppenheimer, 2009 for a review; Sherman, Cialdini,

Schwartzman, & Reynolds, 1985). Considered together, this

research suggests that people may imagine a relatively

positive posttrauma future, and decide they would not need

nor want the drug.

To address these issues, we asked people to read a

scenario about a vicious assault. We manipulated the

circumstances of the assault so that people read about

themselves experiencing one of two similar attacks occurr-

ing in two very different contexts. In the first version, people

read that they were a restaurant manager attacked while

returning from work late at night; in the second version, they

read about the same attack but as a soldier returning to base

late at night.

We also manipulated the base rate of PTSD, telling some

of our subjects that only 4% of people go on to develop PTSD

after a traumatic experience, telling others that the figure was

40%, and telling still others nothing about the base rate of

PTSD. Because the relevant literature is mixed, we had no

specific prediction about the effects of this manipulation. On

the one hand, research leads us to speculate that base rate

information may influence people’s attitudes to memory

dampening drugs. Typically, people believe that others are

more at risk for developing certain medical conditions than

they themselves are (Hansen, Raynor, & Wolkenstein, 1991;

Perloff & Fetzer, 1986; Weinstein, 1984, 1987, see

Weinstein, 1989 for a review). Therefore, it is possible that

feeding people base rate information could counteract their

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

sense of invincibility. In other words, it could lead people to

be more concerned that they might develop PTSD and be

more positively disposed towards a memory dampening drug

(seeMenon, Raghubir, & Agrawal, 2008). On the other hand,

some research suggests that base rates often do not affect

people’s attitudes – instead, people overlook base rate

information, focusing on idiosyncratic aspects of an event

(Bar-Hillel, 1980; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974; cf. Ginosar

& Trope, 1987; Koehler, 1996). Therefore, it is possible that

feeding people base rate information might have no influence

on their disposition towards a memory dampening drug.

In the study below, we asked a sample of people in the

United States (US) and New Zealand (NZ) to read the assault

scenarios and then tell us if they wanted the choice to receive

a memory dampening drug, and (assuming they had a choice)

if they would actually want to take it. We expected that

people’s responses might vary by country, reflecting the fact

that Americans are more comfortable with the idea of taking

medication. For instance, people in the US medicate

themselves more than people in any other Organization

for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

nation, spending $121 per person annually on over-the-

counter drugs – more than three times as much as people in

NZ, who spend $40 (OECD Health Data, 2009). When it

comes to prescription drugs, the US again comes out on top,

spending $878 USD per person per year (OECDHealth Data,

2009). By contrast, people in NZ rank 23/24, spending $241

USD per person per year. The comparison is especially

noteworthy, given that the US and NZ are the only OECD

countries permitting direct to consumer prescription drug

advertising (Mintzes et al., 2002).

METHOD

Design

We used a 2 (context: restaurant or military)� 3 (base rate:

4%, 40% or no information)� 2 (country: US or NZ)

between-subjects design. The first factor was context. In the

restaurant condition, people read a version of the assault

scenario that described a restaurant manager returning from

work late at night. In the military condition, people read a

version of the assault scenario describing the same attack

happening to a soldier returning to base late at night.

The second factor was base rate. People read either that

4%, or 40% of people go on to develop PTSD; in the ‘no

information’ version of the scenario, there was no mention of

how often people develop PTSD.

Subjects

A total of 997 people from the community completed the

survey; there were 518 women (52%), 463 men (46%) (16

people did not report gender); they ranged in age from 18 to

80 (M¼ 28.2, SD¼ 13.7). Of the 997 subjects, there were

650 Americans and 347 New Zealanders.1

Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 675–681 (2011)

Attitudes about memory dampening 677

Procedure

We distributed the survey in various parts of southern

California, and Wellington, NZ. People who agreed to take

part completed the survey immediately, and returned it to one

of the experimenters. Each scenario was approximately 100

words long, and varied only in line with the manipulations

described above. For example, people in the restaurant

condition read:

You are a restaurant manager who has just finished work

late at night, and you put the night’s takings in your

backpack so you can deposit them into the restaurant’s

bank account in the morning. Your journey home takes

you through a poorly lit park. While in the park, a man

appears in front of you, and stabs you in the stomach. As

you fall to the ground, he kicks you hard in the ribs, steals

the money and runs off. Although you are badly shaken by

the viciousness of the assault, you are able to get to the

nearest hospital.

People in the military condition read:

You are a soldier on a peacekeeping mission in Afghani-

stan who has just finished patrolling late at night, and you

put the night’s supplies in your pack. Your journey to the

base takes you through dark terrain. While on your way to

the base, a man appears in front of you, and stabs you in

the stomach. As you fall to the ground, he kicks you hard

in the ribs, steals the supplies and your gun and runs off.

Although you are badly shaken by the viciousness of the

assault, you are able to get to the nearest base, where there

is a hospital.

Before reading each scenario, people read a paragraph

describing a drug used to diminish the possible after-effects

of trauma. Although we did not mention propranolol by

name, we based our description of the drug and its effects on

subsequent recall from the scientific literature (Brunet et al.,

2008; Cahill et al., 1994; Pitman et al., 2002). The

paragraphs changed only in respect to the base rate condition.

For example, the 4% version read:

Scientific studies have shown that on average, 4% of

people who experience a traumatic event will develop

PTSD. Some of the debilitating symptoms of PTSD

include recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections

of the event, irritability or outbursts of anger and an

exaggerated startle response. Recently, research has

shown that if a person who has had a traumatic experience

is given a certain drug within a few hours of that experi-

ence, the drug can ‘dampen’ the memory of that event and

minimize the effects of PTSD. In other words, the drug

will lessen the emotion associated with the event, and

diminish factual content for the event, without causing the

complete erasure of the event.

The 40% version replaced 4% with 40%, and people who

read the version with no information read a modified opening

sentence: scientific studies have shown that people who

experience a traumatic event can develop PTSD.

Our primary dependent measures were people’s responses

to two questions: in Question 1 [Q1], people reported the

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

extent to which they would want access to a memory

dampening drug, and in Question 2 [Q2], they reported how

likely they would be to actually take the drug if it were made

available. They made their responses on a 5-point Likert type

scale, with anchors 1¼ definitely no to 5¼ definitely yes.

We also asked people for demographic information such as

sex, age and whether or not they had ever witnessed or

experienced a traumatic event.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Our primary interest in this study was to examine whether

people wanted access to memory dampening drugs and

whether they would actually want to take these drugs. We

were also interested in whether the context of trauma

(whether people read about themselves being attacked as a

restaurant manager or a soldier), country of residence and

perceived prevalence of PTSD would affect people’s

attitudes to the drug. Below we focus on two key findings:

the extent towhich peoplewanted the choice to take the drug,

and if they themselves would take the drug. Because we

found that base rate information had no effect on our

findings, we omitted this factor from the analyses below.

Who should have access to the memory dampening

drug?

To examine people’s attitudes about who should have access

to the memory dampening drug, we took their responses to

Q1 and classified them first according to whether they were

from the US or NZ and then by the context in which the

assault occurred. We display those results in Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows three important findings. First, regardless

of where people lived or the hypothetical context in which

they read they were attacked, they showed only modest

desire to have access to the drug. Second, depending on what

country they lived in, the context in which people were

attacked mattered: Americans showed more support for their

right to access the drug if they were the soldier than if they

were the restaurant manager; by contrast, New Zealanders

showed similar support for their right to access the drug when

they were either the restaurant manager or the soldier. Third,

when they adopted the soldier’s point of view, Americans

showed greater support for their right to access the drug than

did New Zealanders.

Statistical support for these findings can be seen in a 2

(context: restaurant ormilitary)� 2 (country: US orNZ) analysis

of variance (ANOVA) which showed a Context�Country

interaction, F(1,996)¼ 4.23, p¼ .04, f¼ .06. Follow-up t-tests

showed that for Americans, the context mattered: the ‘military’

subjects agreedmore strongly that they should have the choice to

take the drug than did the ‘restaurant’ subjects, t(993)¼ 2.78,

p¼ .01, Cohen’s d¼ .18. For New Zealanders, context did not

matter, t(993)¼ .52, p¼ .62. When we focused on just the

military subjects, we found that Americans agreedmore strongly

that they should have access to the drug than did New

Zealanders, t(993)¼ 2.43, p¼ .02, d¼ .15.

We also examined whether people who had experienced a

traumatic event would be more inclined to want access to the

memory dampening drug. Would these people have similar

Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 675–681 (2011)

Figure 1. American and New Zealand responses about access to memory dampening drugs

678 E. J. Newman et al.

attitudes about who should have access to the drug? To assess

this, we analyzed the Q1 responses of the 334 people who

said they had experienced a traumatic event. When we reran

the ANOVA adding traumatic experience (yes, no) as a

factor, we found the same pattern of results. That is, there

was no effect for trauma, F< 1, but there was a

Context�Country interaction, F(1,971)¼ 4.21, p¼ .04,

f¼ .06. Although our conclusions should be taken as

speculative because of the violation of random assignment,

they suggest that experiencing a traumatic event did not

affect people’s attitudes about having access to the drug.

Who would want to take the memory dampening

drug?

Did the effects we found for who should have access to the

drug translate into similar effects when people were asked

whether they themselves would want to take the drug? The

answer is no. As Figure 2 shows, we found no effects for

where people lived or the context in which they were attacked.

Instead, we found that across these factors, people tended to

reject the drugwhen given the choice to take it. In other words,

there was no effect for country, F< 1, no effect for context,

F(1,995)¼ 1.27, p¼ .26 and no interaction, F< 1. Unsurpris-

ingly, the more people agreed that they should have the choice

Figure 2. American and New Zealand response

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

about taking the memory dampening drug, the more they

agreed that they would exercise that choice. Put another way,

there was a positive correlation between people’s responses

about having the choice of the drug and their responses about

whether they would take the drug, r(994)¼ .42, p< .01.

Again we wondered if people who had experienced a

traumatic event would have different attitudes towards taking

the memory dampening drug. One possibility is that people

who had experienced a traumatic event would have greater

awareness of its distressing after-effects and be more

inclined to want the drug. To address this possibility, we

reran the ANOVA adding traumatic experience as a factor,

and found that in fact, people who had experienced trauma

were less inclined to take the drug (M¼ 2.10, SD¼ 1.29)

than people who had not experienced trauma (M¼ 2.29,

SD¼ 1.25). The remaining pattern of results was the same.

In other words, a 2 (context: restaurant or military)� 2

(country: US or NZ)� 2 (trauma: yes, no) ANOVA showed

no effect for context, F< 1, no effect for country, F(1,

970)¼ 1.03, p¼ .31, but an effect for trauma, F(1,

970)¼ 5.03, p¼ .02, f¼ .07. This pattern of results held

only for those people who had experienced a traumatic

event. People who had witnessed a traumatic event showed a

similar – although not significant – pattern of responding,

all F’s <1.

s about taking memory dampening drugs

Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 675–681 (2011)

Attitudes about memory dampening 679

Finally, we analyzed the data to determine if age or gender

were related to people’s opinions about wanting access to the

memory dampening drug or exercising that choice. There

was no relationship between age and choice, r(974)¼ .05,

p¼ .14; or age and taking the drug, r(973)¼ .02, p¼ .50.

Men (M¼ 3.34, SD¼ 1.50) and women (M¼ 3.50,

SD¼ 1.41) had similar views on access to the drug

t(979)¼ 1.72, p¼ .09, d¼ .11, but men (M¼ 2.11,

SD¼ 1.28) were less inclined than women (M¼ 2.32,

SD¼ 1.25) to exercise their choice to take the drug

t(978)¼ 2.55, p¼ .01, d¼ .16.

The primary purpose of this research was to examine

people’s attitudes about memory dampening drugs. Taken

together, these data suggest that people generally rejected the

memory dampening drug. In fact, only 54% of people said

they agreed with having the choice to take the drug (rating

four or five on the scale), and an even smaller percentage of

people agreed that they would exercise that choice (18%).

This less than enthusiastic support for the memory

dampening drug fits with the research suggesting that

people readily generate rosy futures in their minds, more

fluently imagining positive events and outcomes than

negative ones (Newby-Clark & Ross, 2003).

Nonetheless, it is possible that people did indeed think

they would experience significantly bad consequences after

the assault, including severe PTSD (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007;

Riis et al., 2005) – yet they rejected the dampening drug

anyway. Why?

One possibility is that such a pattern of results might well

reflect general discomfort about tinkering with our mem-

ories, as depicted in movies such as ‘Eternal Sunshine of

the Spotless Mind’.2 In other words, memory dampening

drugs may threaten people’s sense of their identities. If

memories comprise who we are, then does tinkering with

our memories change who we are (James 1890/1950;

Neisser, 1988; Wilson & Ross, 2003)? Perhaps our subjects

considered this notion.

In addition, we asked people to make a decision about

the drug without knowing if they would ever develop the

negative psychological consequences that would have

warranted their taking the drug; that is, we asked them if

they would take the drug as a preventative measure. Of

course, it is not as though the notion of preventative drugs is

novel – people around the world receive immunizations to

ward off common and rare diseases. Still, perhaps people

would respond differently to a scenario where therapeutic

intervention occurred once people had already developed

PTSD, an approach that is gaining increasing empirical

support (e.g. Brunet et al., 2008; Schiller, Monfils, Raio,

Johnson, LeDoux, & Phelps, 2010). It is also possible that

when people considered the memory dampening drug, they

decided it would be wiser to pursue conventional treatments

for PTSD symptoms first before turning to something new

whose risks are unknown.

Another possibility is that people did not judge the assault

scenario we asked them to read to be a sufficiently significant

trauma; that is, perhaps they would reserve the notion of

‘trauma’ for rape, fires and mass murder – a kind of dose–

2We thank an anonymous reviewer for this notion.

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

response model of PTSD. Of course, people’s notions of the

relative impact of comparatively minor and major trauma

are misplaced, as the evidence arguing against a dose–

response model of trauma reactions suggests (see McNally,

2003a).

In many ways, people’s widespread rejection of the drug

was surprising for several reasons. First, we live in an era

where pharmaceutical advancements produce drugs that

would have been viewed as miracles only decades ago, such

as nanoparticles that act like small biochemical weapons,

selectively destroying cancer cells (Murphy et al., 2008). At

the same time, people are increasingly willing to seek out

cosmetic treatments that selectively destroy eyebrow

furrows. In this context, Chatterjee’s (Chatterjee, 2004,

2006) idea of cosmetic neurology reflects a public’s

willingness to selectively destroy or minimize even minor

flaws. On the face of it, then, it is interesting that people were

not more favorable about a memory dampening drug. But as

Riis, Simmons, and Goodwin (2008) showed, although

people said they were willing to take drugs that improved

their attention and concentration, they were less willing to

take drugs that changed more social attributes – such as

anxiety and motivation – that people saw as fundamental to

their identities.

We also found that when Americans adopted the point of

view of a soldier on a peacekeeping mission, they were more

in favor of having access to the drug than when they adopted

the point of view of a restaurant manager suffering a similar

attack on the way home. By contrast, New Zealanders

showed no such effects. In addition, people tended to reject

the notion that they would take the drug themselves,

regardless of the context in which the traumatic experience

occurred, or where they were from.

The fact that Americans who adopted the soldier’s point of

view were more supportive of their right to have access to a

memory dampening drug may reflect factors such as the

difference in how Americans and New Zealanders view

the military. New Zealanders place little emphasis on the

military, as revealed by the small percentage of gross

domestic product (GDP) spent on it (1%) – a value smaller

than its close neighbour Australia (2.4%) and significantly

smaller than the US (4.06%) (Central Intelligence Agency

(CIAWorld Fact Book, 2010); see also Elvy, 2008). In fact, a

recent survey showed that half of New Zealanders were

unwilling to increase spending on defense even though 84%

of people agreed the military was ill-equipped to deal with an

attack (Elvy, 2008).

The attitudes of Americans adopting the soldier’s point of

view do not square with the ethical concerns raised by

scholars and pundits: for example, although the President’s

Council on Bioethics (2003) raised the idea that civilians

who act in defensive public safety roles – police offers,

firefighters and other ‘first responders’ – could have access to

a memory dampening drug, they expressed reservations

about extending the same options to soldiers – who, by

definition, have both offensive and defensive roles (see also

Henry, Fishman, & Youngman, 2007; Kolber, 2006).

Whereas public safety personnel defend against the causes

of trauma, soldiers also create trauma; a drug that dampens

their emotional response to waging war might act to produce

Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 25: 675–681 (2011)

680 E. J. Newman et al.

a ‘killing machine’. There is no evidence that American

subjects shared this concern. Of course, we did not ask them

to take on board specific ethical concerns in making their

decisions – such an approach would be an interesting one,

worthy of future study.

The finding that varying the base rate did not influence

people’s attitudes towards the memory dampening drug fits

with the idea that people tend to overlook information about

base rates (e.g.Bar-Hillel, 1980;Tversky&Kahneman,1974).

In other words, when making their decision, people in our

study may have relied on the context in which the trauma

occurred rather than the prevalence of PTSD. Other research

suggests that people pay attention to information about base

rates only under certain conditions: for example,making event

details seem less diagnostic or even unrelated to a judgment

leads people to heed base rates (Ginosar & Trope, 1980; for a

review see Koehler, 1996). Perhaps a manipulation that

increased the salience of base rates would lead people to be

more concerned about the possibility of getting PTSD and

make them more disposed toward the drug.

How should we make sense of the fact that trauma victims

were less inclined to take the drug? Such a pattern fits with the

idea that trauma memories may serve various adaptive

functions such as providing turning points in someone’s life

and guiding behavior for future events (Krans, Naring,

Becker & Holmes, 2009; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2009).

Our subjects may have experienced positive growth after a

trauma or come across a situation where the trauma memory

helped them–adifferentpatternof resultsmayhaveemerged if

wehad askedpeoplewhowere currently suffering fromPTSD,

or had recently experienced a trauma (see McNally, 2003b;

Zoellner&Maercker, 2006; see also,Gilbert&Wilson, 2007).

What we do not know is whether a more concrete, detailed

description of trauma-related distress, including intrusive

memories, would give people a better sense of what it would

be like to suffer from these symptoms and thus increase the

likelihood that they would want to take the drug themselves.

We also do not know if people think that memory dampening

drugs would have significant consequences for the justice

system. For example, would they consider testimony

unreliable if given by someone who had taken a memory

dampening drug, or would they be more willing to allow

victims – rather than eyewitnesses – to have access to the

drug? We are currently investigating these questions.

Nietzsche (1980) seemed to embrace the notion of

forgetting when he said ‘Without forgetting, it is quite

impossible to live at all’ (p. 10). The people in our study, on

the other hand, eschewed the notion of forgetting.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Rebecca Bell, Shaun Haywood, students

in PSYC435 at Victoria University of Wellington and

research assistants at the University of California, Irvine

for their invaluable help with data collection. This study was

partially funded by a mini-grant from the University of

California, Office of the President, Pacific Rim Research

Program awarded to Shari R. Berkowitz from the University

of California, Irvine.

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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