Elizabeth Loftus: Biography and False Memoires
Psy/310

When looking at the field of psychology, we will learn about males who have contributed to the growth of psychology. Some examples of men we study in beginners psychology are E.G Boring, Robert I. Watson and of course Sigmund Freud. There is little mention of females who have contributed to psychology. Why is it that females are not really mentioned in the history of psychology? Females have contributed to the growth of psychology just as men have. A woman that has spent her whole life trying to understand memory is Elizabeth Loftus. We will begin with a short biography and also touch on how she has helped psychology to grow. Elizabeth Loftus was born Elizabeth Fishman on October 16, 1944 to Sidney and Rebecca Fishman in Los Angeles, California (Born, 1997). She was raised in Bel Air with both her parents. Then in 1959 her mother passed away, she had drowned in a swimming pool when Loftus was only 14 years old. Loftus wanted to be a high school math teacher, but after attending a psychology class at UCLA she changed her mind. She continued in school to receive her Bachelors in 1966 in math and psychology. She met Geoffrey Loftus in 1968 while attending graduate school at Stanford, and married him. While attending Stanford she was introduced to the study of long term memory and was very interested in this subject. Loftus got her Masters in 1967. She continued her education at Stanford and got her Ph. D in1970. Then in 1973 Loftus was offered a position as assistant professor at the University of Washington where her husband Geoffrey also worked. In 1991 both Geoffrey and Elizabeth called a quits on their marriage ending in divorce (Born, 1997). Today Loftus still works at the University of Washington as a psychology professor and also as an affiliate professor at the University of California where she was raised. Loftus main focus is on repressed sexual abuse memories that happened in childhood that appears 20 years later after the event happened in adult women. In 1995 Loftus received the Distinguished Contribution award presented by the American Academy of Forensic Psychology. To this date Loftus has published 19 books and around 200 articles in different magazines and has also appeared on well known television shows and example would be the Oprah Winfrey Show. Loftus is known for her work with false memory. She remains one of the most popular speakers for the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (Born, 1997). Born (1997), “The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all our hearts is not necessarily true” (Elizabeth Loftus). Through her research Loftus has proved that people are capable of producing false memories, and as time continues to go on people become more susceptible to believing that the false memories actually occurred. Loftus is an expert witness; she has been called to testify in over 200 trials to share her knowledge on false memories from small trials to famous ones like Ted Bundy and George Franklin. She testifies with the hope that with her help she will be able to prevent innocent victims from going to prison (Born, 1997). Loftus believes that false memories occur either by being triggered, suggested, implanted or even created in our own heads. Her work makes people wonder the credibility of long term buried memories of trauma. Her students and she have done more than 200 experiments with over 20,000 people showing that eyewitness testimonies are often unreliable and that false memories can be triggered up to 25% just by suggestion or by them getting incorrect information ahead of time (Born, 1997). Loftus experienced her own theory in her life 30 years after her mother passed away. Her uncle told Loftus that she was the first person to find her mother in the pool after she had drowned. After hearing this from her uncle she began to have vivid memories and pictures drift quickly back into her head of that day. A few days later her uncle called her and told her he was mistaken it was her aunt who had found her mother that day in the pool. So at that moment Elizabeth Loftus was a perfect example of false memory and of how easy it is to make up a false memory and believe it that you actually have visual confirmation. Loftus performed a study with some help from some of her students; it was called the lost in the mall scenario. She gathered 24 subjects between the ages of 18-53 it does not state the sex or race of any of the subjects. She asked the subject individually if they remembered childhood events. She would show them a book that had four different events three of them being true and one being made up of their childhood. They used a parent, older sibling or even another close relative to help the subject remember childhood events and even the fourth statement that had been made up. The fourth statement was that when they were five years old they had been lost in a mall. This of course was verified by the family member to have never happened to the subject. The fourth statement had some key elements in it to make it more believable; that they were lost for an extended amount of time, they were crying, they were found and comforted by and elderly women and then finally reunited with their family. The subjects remembered 49 of the 72 actual events they were then instructed to read a book that had in detail the event that happened when they were lost at the mall. After reading the book seven of the 24 remembered either part or the entire scenario of getting lost at the mall. After two follow up interviews six out of the seven subjects continued to strongly believe that the whole getting lost at the mall was something that had actually happened to them when they were five years old (University of Washington, 1997).
According to University of Washington (1997),“Research is beginning to give us an understanding of how false memories of complete, emotional and self-participatory experiences are created in adults. First, there are social demands on individuals to remember; for instance, researchers exert some pressure on participants in a study to come up with memories. Second, memory construction by imagining events can be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering. And, finally, individuals can be encouraged not to think about whether their constructions are real or not. Creation of false memories is most likely to occur when these external factors are present, whether in an experimental setting, in a therapeutic setting or during everyday activities”(Creating False Memories). Many therapist use “Memory Works”, as a way to retrieve repressed memories using techniques like regression, dream work, hypnosis, visualization, group therapy and suggestions given by therapist. This can be seen as a helpful way to bring up horrible memories so that the person can finally deal with these old issues and get the help that they need. On the other hand it can be seen as negative if the memories they are bringing up are not true but were forced on the person seeking help. There are many cases like that where the psychiatrist is accused of making the patient have false memories that never even happened to them. Take the case of Beth Rutherford in 1992 she had gone to a church therapist who had helped Rutherford during therapy remember that her father had raped her and she had gotten pregnant two times and then her father forced her to perform her own abortion using a coat hanger. Later examination of Rutherford proved that she was still a virgin at 22 years old and that she had never been pregnant. Rutherford sued the therapist and in 1996 received a settlement of 1 million dollars (University of Washington, 1997). Elizabeth Loftus is just one woman in the psychology field who has helped psychology to continue to grow and gain positive attention. Hopefully in the future our children will learn that psychology was not changed only because of men, but that women are just as capable of contributing to the continuing growth of psychology and are to this day doing it.

References
Born, C. (1997). History of Psychology Archives. Muskingum College. Retrieved from http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm
University of Washington. (1997). Elizabeth F. Loftus. Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm