Consistency and Relativity in Selective Recall with Differing Ego‐Involvement

In appraising equal numbers of pro and con attitude-relevant statements, subjects created twice as many balanced as imbalanced structures, thus later also recalled more balanced information. However, relative to the available pools they created, they recalled proportionately more imbalanced than balanced information. Higher ego-involvement accentuated all of these processes. Instructional set and delay time did not alter the pattern, although immediate recall was superior. Recall results do not support simple selective hypotheses, favouring either agreed-with or attitude-favourable information. Selective recall for imbalanced information suggests revision of balance hypotheses tested previously by data reflecting larger pools of balanced structures created by subjects with ego-involving attitudes.