Ricerc@Sapienza

The present research addressed the question of whether need for closure (NFC; Kruglanski in The psychology of closed mindedness, Psychology Press, New York, 2004) biases individuals’ memory of female leaders. Merging research on role congruity theory of leadership (Koenig et al. in Psychol Bull 4:616–642, 2011. https ://doi.org/10.1037/a0023 557) and research on retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF, Anderson et al. in J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cognit 20:1063–1087, 1994.

Recalling information from a particular category can reduce one's memory capability for related, non-retrieved information. This is known as the retrieval-induced forgetting effect (RIF; Anderson et al., 1994). The present paper reviews studies that show that the RIF effect is motivated. More specifically, we describe research showing that the need for closure (NFC; the motivation to attain epistemic certainty; Kruglanski and Webster, 1996) generally enhances the RIF, because this prevents uncertainty and confusion from the intrusion of unwanted memories during selective-retrieval.