ИСТИНА

The greater the discrepancy between ideal self and real self, the higher is personal trait anxiety (Higgins, 1989).The self depends upon autobiographical memories and, consequently, memories may be altered spontaneously to support the current self (Wilson, Ross, 2003; Nourkova, 2004; Conway, 2005). The objective of the present study was to examine if people's self-esteem increases after they are induced with false memories about having behaved "correctly" in the past. 120 adults participated in the study. They wrote down three traits that they felt were most important for their self-image. They recalled one memory per trait that constituted a wrong behavior (e.g. "I am a courageous person, but I remember an episode of being scared by a small barking dog"). Then they were divided into 4 groups. Experimental Group, whilst in the hypnotic state, were asked to imagine themselves in the originally reported situation behaving in line with their traits. Group 2, 3 and 4 served as various types of controls. The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale was administered before and 4 months after the experiment. Scores on MAS served as an indicator of conformity between ideal and real self. All groups were equal in MAS scores before the manipulation; however, four months after the experiment MAS scores of the group in which memory alternation was attempted were significantly lower. Moreover participants in that group were not able to distinguish initial memories and false memories.