Calling Memory Into Question

14 Pages 3562 Words

e is no evidence to support the claim that subjective certainty about the accuracy of memories or the vividness of memories significantly correlates with accuracy. Finally, the claim of a causal connection between abuse and health or behavior does not warrant concluding that ill health, mental or physical, is a 'sign' of having been abused (Loftus 1980).
This model is the basis for a number of pseudoscientific works on child abuse by self-proclaimed experts such as Ellen Bass, E. Sue Blum, Laura Davis, Beverly Engel, Beverly Holman, Wendy Maltz and Mary Jane Williams (Travis 1993). Through communal reinforcement many empirically unsupported notions, including the claim that about half of all women have been sexually abused, get treated as a 'fact' by many people. Psychologist Carol Travis writes: “In what can only be called an incestuous arrangement, the authors of these books all rely on one another's work as supporting evidence for their own; they all recommend one another's books to their readers. If one of them comes up with a co...