The glitter of everyday memory…and the gold.

Abstract

In 1989, an article in the American Psychologist entitled Bankruptcy of Everyday Memory caused quite a stir. It was read by many as an accusation against a class of memory researchers who would purportedly sacrifice the quest for truly generalizable by embracing the glitter of (Banaji & Crowder, 1989, p. 1192). The membership criteria for qualification in the memory club were curiously disjunctive. Some 'everyday researchers went out of their way to study memory by using ecologically interesting stimulus materials (such as a 47-day bicycle tour through Scandanavia). Others used realistically manipulated states of consciousness (such as alcohol intoxication), or colorful subject populations (such as anyone who is not a college undergraduate), or naturalistic observation (such as memory for an actual crime). In their abstract, Banaji and Crowder told readers that they would be criticizing the memory approach. In the main article, they specifically complained about the past decade of passionate rhetoric espoused by the types who allegedly claimed that important questions about memory could be tackled 'if only researchers looked to the 'real world' for hypothesis validation (p. 1185). Bankruptcy was the word used in the title and again on the first page when readers were forewarned that an argument would be made that the move to develop an ecologically valid psychology of memory has proven itself largely bankrupt (Banaji & Crowder, 1989, p. 1185). Why bankrupt? Banaji and Crowder said plainly: No new principles of memory have been discovered; and no methods of data collection have been developed that add sophistication or precision (p. 1185). Rather, any dramatic emergent principles that were uncovered turned out to be everyday manifestations of laboratory wisdom (p. 1190). Moreover, the memory movement, they worried, carries the potential danger of compromising genuine accomplishments of our young endeavor (p. 1185). Reactions to the Article