10 Facts About Transactive memory

Transactive memory is a psychological hypothesis first proposed by Daniel Wegner in 1985 as a response to earlier theories of "group mind" such as groupthink.

Transactive memory was initially studied in couples and families where individuals had close relationships but was later extended to teams, larger groups, and organizations to explain how they develop a "group mind", a memory system that is more complex and potentially more effective than that of any of its individual constituents.

Just as an individual's metamemory allows them to be aware of what information is available for retrieval, so does the transactive memory system provide teammates with information regarding the knowledge they have access to within the group.

Transactive memory was further extended by Diane Liang and colleagues into the realm of work groups.

Just like human memory, the development of a transactive memory system involves three stages: encoding, storage and retrieval.

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Much research has shown that a transactive memory system is primarily developed through interactions between team members.

The most prevalent measure of transactive memory as developed by Kyle Lewis measures these three components as indicators that a group has developed a transactive memory.

Strong transactive memory system is achieved when the group gains information about the knowledge repertoire that all other teammates hold and use this information in order to acquire different complementary knowledge.

Transactive memory is composed of specialized knowledge and understanding of who has that knowledge, but benefits are not limited to just groups that engage in a lot of knowledge work.

When transactive memory was first envisioned, the authors were describing an external memory store within other people.