Consistency Bias – Arizona Forensic Services, LLC

Snap Shot

The question: When witnesses describe how they felt, what they believed, or how they regarded another person at an earlier time, how closely does the recollection reflect the past rather than the present?

What the research shows: People tend to remember their past attitudes, feelings, and evaluations of relationships as more similar to their present ones than they were, and usually do not notice the shift. When people believe they have changed, the reverse can occur, and the past is remembered as more different than it was. Recollections of past feelings are partly rebuilt from present feelings and later knowledge.

What it does not show: It does not show that a particular witness’s account of past feelings or of a past relationship is wrong, or in which direction it may have moved. Recalled attitudes and feelings also track the actual past to a substantial degree, and the research concerns attitudes and feelings more than memory for events or for one’s own prior statements.

The law: Prior statements are tested under Rule 613; expert testimony on consistency bias is governed by Rule 702 and Houser, stays general, and may not declare a particular witness’s recollection accurate or false (Lindsey, Moran). Arizona permits general memory testimony in the trial court’s discretion (Chapple, Nordstrom).

Issues for each side: Prosecutors can explain that a changed recollection of past feelings need not indicate dishonesty, without treating a witness’s sense of consistency as proof; defense counsel can compare recalled feelings and attitudes with the contemporaneous record, recognizing that the same bias affects the accused’s account.

Consistency bias is the tendency to remember one’s past attitudes, beliefs, and feelings as more similar to one’s present ones than they were. A person who has changed a political view, warmed to a colleague, or turned against a former friend often recalls having felt that way all along. The shift is not a lie. It is a product of how memory reconstructs the past, and the person usually has no sense that anything has been altered.

The bias reaches court because witnesses are regularly asked to describe past states of mind: how they felt about a partner before a separation, whether they were afraid at a particular time, what they thought of a supervisor, or what they believed when they acted. Those questions arise in sexual assault and domestic violence cases, in family and employment disputes, and in cases in which intent or state of mind is at issue. They are asked of complainants, accused persons, and other witnesses alike, and the answers are given after events, such as a breakup, an allegation, or an arrest, that may have changed how the witness now feels.

This paper summarizes the classic research on consistency bias, the implicit theories of stability and change that explain it, the counterpart change bias, the research on memory for past emotions and for relationships, and the implications for accounts of prior relationships and for witnesses’ own prior statements. It then addresses the limits of the evidence and the law the topic touches.

What Consistency Bias Is

Schacter (1999) grouped consistency bias with other ways in which present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings shape what people remember of the past, under the heading of bias. The foundational demonstrations concern attitudes. In an early experiment, high school students whose views on school busing shifted after a group discussion that included a peer confederate arguing the opposing side later recalled their original attitudes as closer to their new positions than their original reports had been (Goethals & Reckman, 1973). In a panel study that interviewed the same people in 1973 and 1982, respondents’ recollections of their 1973 political attitudes resembled their 1982 attitudes more closely than the attitudes they had actually reported in 1973 (Markus, 1986).

The common thread is that people underestimate how much they have changed. A reconstructed attitude is experienced as remembered rather than inferred, so the person has no cue that it has drifted. A witness who sincerely says “I have always felt this way” may be correct, or may be reporting a change that the witness has not detected.

Implicit Theories of Stability and Change

The leading explanation is that people reconstruct their past states from their present state and from an implicit theory about whether the attribute in question tends to stay stable or to change (Ross, 1989). When a person cannot directly retrieve how he or she felt, the person starts from how he or she feels now and adjusts according to that theory. If the person assumes stability, the recalled past is drawn toward the present, producing consistency bias when a change has in fact occurred. When the theory is accurate, the same process produces reasonably accurate recall.

The process can run in the opposite direction. When people expect to have changed, they may remember the past as more different than it was. In a classic study, students who took part in a study-skills program that produced no measurable improvement later recalled their pre-program skills as worse than they had rated them at the time, so that they could perceive an improvement that had not occurred (Conway & Ross, 1984). This change bias is the counterpart of consistency bias: both arise from the same reconstructive process, and which one appears depends on whether the person believes the attribute has held steady or shifted. A 2022 meta-analysis found that perceptions of growth following trauma were related to several cognitive biases, including memory bias and beliefs in growth, which is consistent with the view that people’s sense of how much they have changed is partly constructed (Gower et al., 2022). That finding concerns perceived change; it does not show that reported growth is illusory for any particular person.

Memory for Past Feelings

Feelings may be especially open to this kind of reconstruction, because what is stored about a past emotion is often thin and must be filled in. People estimate how they felt from what they remember of the circumstances, their current appraisal of those circumstances, and their beliefs about how they probably felt (Levine & Safer, 2002). In a study of supporters of a presidential candidate who withdrew from the 1992 race and later re-entered it, supporters’ recollections of how they had felt when he withdrew were biased in ways consistent with how they appraised him months later (Levine, 1997). In a study of students’ anxiety before an examination, recollections of pre-exam anxiety shifted after students learned their grades, in a direction consistent with how they had done (Safer et al., 2002).

A large 2023 study shows the same pattern at scale. In four studies across 11 countries with more than 10,000 participants, people’s recollections of how risky they had judged the COVID-19 pandemic to be, how much they had trusted institutions, and how they had behaved depended strongly on their current evaluations; people who identified strongly as vaccinated or as unvaccinated showed larger distortions in opposite directions (Sprengholz et al., 2023). Information about common recall errors and small payments for accuracy did not reduce the bias, although large payments partly did. The study suggests that motivation and identity can influence the direction in which a recollection moves, and that a simple warning may not correct it.

Memory for Relationships

Memory for how one felt about another person follows the same pattern. Students in dating relationships whose impressions of their partner became more favorable over two months recalled their earlier impressions as more favorable than they had reported, and those whose impressions became less favorable recalled them as less favorable (McFarland & Ross, 1987). Recollections of one’s own attachment patterns from eight months earlier were biased toward current patterns (Scharfe & Bartholomew, 1998). In longitudinal studies of couples, partners reported that their love and satisfaction had grown over time even when their own yearly reports showed no general increase, although perceived change was related to actual change (Sprecher, 1999), and in a 20-year study of wives, recollections of earlier marital satisfaction were biased in a negative direction: at 10 years the past was remembered as worse than reported, so that the present seemed an improvement, and at 20 years recollections resembled current perceptions, although concurrently reported satisfaction had in fact declined (Karney & Coombs, 2000). These studies illustrate both directions: a relationship that is going well tends to be remembered as having always been good or as having steadily improved, and one that has soured may be remembered as having been worse than it was.

Recollections of childhood experience show related effects, along with considerable stability. In a 2026 study of 938 emerging adults who completed a standard childhood-adversity questionnaire three times over two months, reports were highly stable across administrations, but they also varied within individuals, and periods of greater-than-usual support and less strain in the relationship with parents were associated with fewer reported adversities, particularly emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect (Jaros & Chopik, 2026). The authors concluded that retrospective reports reflect both early experience and present relational context. The study does not show that any report was inaccurate, and its findings concern a self-report questionnaire rather than a disclosure or a forensic interview.

Implications for Accounts of Prior Relationships and Prior Statements

Many cases require a witness to describe a relationship as it was before a turning point: affection before a breakup, fear before a report, trust before an allegation, or friction before a dispute. The research suggests that such descriptions can be drawn toward the witness’s present view. That influence can run in any direction. A former partner who is now estranged may recall earlier warmth as cooler than it was; a partner who has reconciled may recall earlier fear or conflict as milder than it was; an accused person may recall a relationship as more harmonious, or a complainant’s conduct as more encouraging, than it was. The research applies equally to every party and does not indicate which way, or whether, a particular recollection has moved.

The same processes bear on a witness’s sense of his or her own consistency. A witness whose trial testimony differs from an earlier statement may sincerely believe that the account has never changed, and a witness may recall an earlier feeling, belief, or intention in terms that fit what the witness now believes. The consistency-bias research concerns attitudes and feelings rather than memory for one’s own statements, so its application to prior statements is an inference rather than a direct finding. The practical implication does not depend on the inference: a witness’s confident sense of having always said or felt the same thing is not, by itself, a reliable measure of whether that is so, because the sense of consistency can be correct or can reflect an undetected change, and contemporaneous records, such as messages, diaries, earlier statements, and reports made at the time, are the better guide. Differences between accounts are discussed further in the hub paper on remembering changes memory.

Limits of the Evidence

Most of the classic studies are decades old, used students or other convenience samples, and measured attitudes or feelings on rating scales over intervals of weeks to years. They concern ordinary attitudes and relationships rather than the experience of a crime, and memory for emotionally significant events may behave differently. Consistency bias is a tendency, not a rule: recalled attitudes and feelings generally correlate substantially with what people actually reported, as the high stability in Jaros and Chopik (2026) illustrates, and people often recognize that they have changed. The direction of any distortion depends on the person’s implicit theory, motivation, and current circumstances, which are rarely known with precision. The research cannot say whether a particular witness’s recollection of a past feeling or relationship is accurate, inflated, or understated, and it cannot replace comparison with the contemporaneous record.

Questions to Ask About This Research

When Sprengholz et al. (2023) is cited to show that a witness’s present views have reshaped a recollection, counsel should ask whether the conclusion follows for this witness, since the study measured average shifts in pandemic attitudes across large samples, not the accuracy of any individual’s account of a personal event. When McFarland and Ross (1987) or Karney and Coombs (2000) is used to suggest that a complainant’s or an accused’s description of an earlier relationship has moved toward a current view, counsel should ask who was studied and in which direction the effect would run here, because McFarland and Ross found movement in both directions depending on how the relationship had developed, and Karney and Coombs found that the form of the bias differed at different stages of long marriages. When Jaros and Chopik (2026) is raised about reports of childhood experience, counsel should ask how much evidence it provides, given that the reports were highly stable and the study used a questionnaire over two months. When the research is applied to a witness’s insistence that an account has never changed, counsel should ask whether any study tested memory for one’s own prior statements and what the contemporaneous record shows. These questions are explained in “Reading Research Claims: A Guide for Attorneys” on this site.

Consistency Bias and the Law

Federal and Military Standards

Differences between a witness’s current account and an earlier one reach the factfinder mainly through prior statements. Under Federal and Military Rule of Evidence 613, a witness may be examined about a prior statement, and extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement is generally admissible only if the witness has an opportunity to explain or deny it. Expert testimony about consistency bias is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as amended December 1, 2023, under which the proponent must show that it is more likely than not that the rule’s requirements are met, including a reliable application of reliable methods. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) made the judge a gatekeeper, and Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael (1999) extended that obligation to all expert testimony, including technical or other specialized knowledge. The 2023 amendment took effect in Military Rule of Evidence 702 in 2025 through Military Rule of Evidence 1102 (Joint Service Committee on Military Justice, 2025); practitioners should confirm current text. Military judges also apply the six factors of United States v. Houser (1993). Testimony may explain how recollections of past attitudes and feelings are reconstructed, but may not tell the factfinder that a particular recollection is accurate or false.

Arizona

Arizona Rule of Evidence 702 adopted the Daubert standard effective January 1, 2012, and was amended effective January 1, 2024, to track the 2023 federal amendment (Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004). State v. Chapple (1983) is Arizona’s leading case on expert testimony about the reliability of memory: excluding a qualified eyewitness expert was an abuse of discretion on its facts, while admission otherwise remains discretionary (State v. Nordstrom, 2001). Experts may describe general principles but may not opine on whether a particular witness is truthful (State v. Lindsey, 1986, 149 Ariz. at 475; State v. Moran, 1986).

Special Issues in Legal Practice

The principles described above apply with equal force to every party in a legal proceeding. The science operates the same way regardless of who is asking the questions, and the research summarized here does not by itself favor either side. What differs between the parties is not the science but the vantage point — the particular places where these issues tend to surface, and the particular errors each party is best positioned to guard against. The two summaries below identify those recurring issues. They are offered for orientation, not as litigation strategy; in every case the controlling question is what the evidence in that case will, and will not, support, and the expert’s role is to inform the trier of fact rather than to advocate for either side.

Special Issues for Prosecutors

The research supports educational testimony that people commonly fail to notice changes in their own attitudes and feelings, so that a difference between a witness’s earlier and later description of a feeling or a relationship need not indicate dishonesty (Ross, 1989; Schacter, 1999). It also supports the point that recalled feelings generally track actual past feelings to a substantial degree, and that the research cannot show a particular recollection to be wrong. The same bias applies to the accused, whose description of an earlier relationship, or of the complainant’s conduct, may have moved toward the accused’s present view. Prosecutors are well positioned to make that testimony useful by preserving early statements, messages, and reports that show how the witness described the relationship and his or her feelings at the time.

The research also counsels caution. A witness’s confident sense of having always felt or said the same thing is not evidence that no change occurred, and testimony that relies on that confidence overstates what the research supports. Recollections of past feelings can be shaped by later events, including the end of a relationship, an allegation, or the investigation itself, and simple warnings may not undo the effect (Sprengholz et al., 2023). When a witness’s present description of an earlier feeling departs from what the witness said or wrote at the time, the factfinder is entitled to weigh the contemporaneous account.

Special Issues for Defense

The research supports comparing a witness’s present description of past feelings, attitudes, and relationships with the contemporaneous record. Recollections of how a person felt about a partner, a friend, or a supervisor can be drawn toward current feelings, and recollections of earlier fear, affection, or conflict can be reshaped by what happened afterward (Karney & Coombs, 2000; Levine, 1997; McFarland & Ross, 1987). Defense counsel are well positioned to identify messages, diaries, earlier statements, and third-party observations made at the time and to develop what changed in the witness’s circumstances between then and trial. Expert testimony explaining consistency and change bias, tied to that record, is a legitimate way to help the factfinder weigh such testimony.

The research also counsels caution about overclaiming. Consistency bias describes a tendency, not a finding that a particular witness has rewritten the past, and recalled feelings often agree substantially with earlier reports. The research does not show that a complainant’s description of fear or distress was exaggerated, and it can equally lead a reconciled or loyal witness to understate earlier fear or conflict. Its extension to memory for one’s own prior statements is an inference. The same processes operate on the accused, whose recollection of the relationship and of his or her own state of mind may have been shaped by the allegation and its consequences.

This paper is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. The author is a psychologist, not an attorney; summaries of law are general and must be verified against current authority or with a licensed attorney.

References

Conway, M., & Ross, M. (1984). Getting what you want by revising what you had. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(4), 738–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.47.4.738

Goethals, G. R., & Reckman, R. F. (1973). The perception of consistency in attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 9(6), 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(73)90030-9

Gower, T., Pham, J., Jouriles, E. N., Rosenfield, D., & Bowen, H. J. (2022). Cognitive biases in perceptions of posttraumatic growth: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 94, Article 102159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2022.102159

Jaros, A., & Chopik, W. J. (2026). Record of the past or reflection of the present? Fluctuations in recollections of childhood adversity and fluctuations in adult relationship circumstances. Child Abuse & Neglect, 173, Article 107873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107873

Joint Service Committee on Military Justice. (2025). Amendments to the Military Rules of Evidence since 1984 (G. E. Maggs, Ed.; 2025 ed.). https://jsc.defense.gov/Portals/99/MRE%20Amendments%202025.pdf

Karney, B. R., & Coombs, R. H. (2000). Memory bias in long-term close relationships: Consistency or improvement? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(8), 959–970. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672002610006

Levine, L. J. (1997). Reconstructing memory for emotions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 126(2), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.126.2.165

Levine, L. J., & Safer, M. A. (2002). Sources of bias in memory for emotions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 169–173. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00193

Markus, G. B. (1986). Stability and change in political attitudes: Observed, recalled, and “explained.” Political Behavior, 8(1), 21–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987591

McFarland, C., & Ross, M. (1987). The relation between current impressions and memories of self and dating partners. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13(2), 228–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167287132008

Ross, M. (1989). Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal histories. Psychological Review, 96(2), 341–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.96.2.341

Safer, M. A., Levine, L. J., & Drapalski, A. L. (2002). Distortion in memory for emotions: The contributions of personality and post-event knowledge. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(11), 1495–1507. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616702237577

Scharfe, E., & Bartholomew, K. (1998). Do you remember? Recollections of adult attachment patterns. Personal Relationships, 5(2), 219–234. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1998.tb00169.x

Schacter, D. L. (1999). The seven sins of memory: Insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. American Psychologist, 54(3), 182–203. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.182

Sprecher, S. (1999). “I love you more today than yesterday”: Romantic partners’ perceptions of changes in love and related affect over time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 46–53. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.46

Sprengholz, P., Henkel, L., Böhm, R., & Betsch, C. (2023). Historical narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic are motivationally biased. Nature, 623(7987), 588–593. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06674-5

Legal Authorities

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999).

State v. Chapple, 135 Ariz. 281, 660 P.2d 1208 (1983).

State v. Lindsey, 149 Ariz. 472, 720 P.2d 73 (1986).

State v. Moran, 151 Ariz. 378, 728 P.2d 248 (1986).

State v. Nordstrom, 200 Ariz. 229, 25 P.3d 717 (2001).

United States v. Houser, 36 M.J. 392 (C.M.A. 1993).

Fed. R. Evid. 613.

Fed. R. Evid. 702.

Mil. R. Evid. 613.

Mil. R. Evid. 702.

Mil. R. Evid. 1102.

Ariz. R. Evid. 702.

Ariz. Sup. Ct. Order R-23-0004 (amending Ariz. R. Evid. 702, effective Jan. 1, 2024).

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