Question

What is motivated forgetting?

Answer 1

People may consciously or unconsciously forget unwanted memories. The two levels of motivated forgetting are repression and thought suppression

1. Repression - According to Sigmund Freud, we subconsciously push unwanted or painful memories into the unconscious for e.g., a boy who was kidnapped as an infant, may forget it, but have difficulty in trusting others throughout life.
2. Thought suppression - It is a conscious effort to forget about painful experiences of life for e.g., a person who was falsely implicated in a criminal case may refuse to talk about it.