ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud’s (1915) notion of memory repression, or motivated forgetting, suggests that people cope with unwanted memories by burying them deep in the mind, where they can lie dormant for weeks, years, or even a lifetime. Although Freud’s theory has intrigued the world and stimulated fascinating research, it also has been fraught with controversy and empirical challenges. We draw on research on social identity and threat-induced coping to examine motivated forgetting in the context of memory for social identity–linked advertising.
