Our brains are designed to learn from people we like: study

A study suggests that we're much more selective than we think when it comes to memorizing new information. Image: Shutterstock

Our memories enable us to store information from different sources, retain it and use it when needed. But some things are harder to remember than others. A Swedish study suggests that this phenomenon is due to the feelings inspired by the person teaching us.

Inês Bramão, associate professor of psychology at Lund University, and her colleagues claim that we retain information more easily when it is transmitted by someone we like or admire. The authors of this study reached this conclusion after conducting three experiments involving a total of 189 volunteers. They were asked to remember and associate different everyday objects. They were also asked to define their likes and dislikes in terms of political opinions, eating habits, hobbies, favorite sports and other areas of interest.

The researchers discovered that participants had an easier time remembering the objects they had to memorize and linking them together when they were presented by someone they knew. And another interesting finding was that the participants' feelings towards this person had a direct influence on their ability to memorize.

The polarization effect

The participants' brains seemed to assimilate new information more easily when it came from someone towards whom they had positive feelings. "Particularly striking is that we integrate information differently depending on who is saying something, even when the information is completely neutral. In real life, where information often triggers stronger reactions, these effects could be even more prominent," outlines study co-author Mikael Johansson in a press release.

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To illustrate this phenomenon, Inês Bramão takes the example of an individual who visits a healthcare center, and notices that improvements have been made in its operation. They may be tempted to link these improvements to current events, especially if they know that a political party is campaigning for a tax increase to finance healthcare spending. "If you sympathize with the party that wanted to improve healthcare through higher taxes, you're likely to attribute the improvements to the tax increase, even though the improvements might have had a completely different cause," Bramão points out in the same release.

If this study is anything to go by, we're far more selective than we think when it comes to memorizing new information. Our brains tend to make connections between different events in order to reinforce our belief system, which explains why polarized viewpoints get reinforced and entrenched.

The study authors warn that the conclusions of this study, published in the journal Communications Psychology, should be considered cautiously due to the limited number of participants and the fact that they were all American. But it could help us to better understand how polarization of ideas arises.