What Is Selective Retention?

Definition:

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Selective retention is a bias where people are more likely to remember messages that closely related to their interests, values, and beliefs than those that are contrary to their values and beliefs.

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Selective Retention Examples:

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• A person may gradually reflect more positively on their time at school as they grow older
• A consumer might remember only the positive health benefits of a product they enjoy
• People who view a company favorably are likely to focus on the positive its times of trouble. [2]
• People tending to omit problems and disputes in past relationships
• A conspiracy theorist paying less attention to facts which do not aid their standpoint

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Outside the theory of memory and mind, selective retention may refer to the retaining of contractual agreements upon moving on in open politics or of physical phenotypes in eugenic methods of propagation of traits and features of a genome, among other fields where action can impose a stratum of creative limitation.

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Factors that Influence Selective Retention

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Sleep: There is research supporting that the more sleep an individual gets the more likely said individual is to retain a set of information. To opposes this, the research also supports that the less sleep an individual gets the less information that individual is likely to retain.[3]

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Education and schooling: The manner and way in which things are taught significantly influences a student's retention of a specific subject matter or concept.

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Students who are more engaged (both in the lessons themselves and attendance) tend to have higher retention than students who are not as involved or present in their schooling.

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There is also an emphasis placed on pictorial learning and visual aids in the classroom to aid students in retention.[4]

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See Also: Confirmation bias, Selective attention, Selective perception

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