When Liars Fool Themselves: Motive to Impress Alters Memory for One's Own Past Evaluative Actions

Previous research has shown that what we tell other people can impair accurate memory for what actually happened, and that tailoring descriptions of an event or person to an audience's known preferences can alter subsequent memory for ambiguous information—an effect that is more pronounced when people are more rather than less motivated to create a shared reality with the audience. The present studies investigated whether motives to impress an...