TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 27, 2026) – What happens to our memories when we learn disturbing news about a beloved artist?
New research from the University of South Florida finds that after a scandal, the brain tricks us: it reconciles a fallen artist with their adored art by rewriting our memories in two completely different directions.
Take Bill Cosby, for example. In the 1990s, “The Cosby Show” dominated prime-time television, and Cosby, who mesmerized the nation with his wit and humor, found himself at the center of a cultural fallout.
A series of lawsuits in 2014 forced his fans to reevaluate their support for Cosby and his shows, raising the question of whether they still remembered him and his work as fondly as they once did.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , finds that people may mentally separate creators like Cosby from their creations when reconstructing memories, a phenomenon described as “differential memory reconstruction.”
“In retrospect, (they) selectively downgrade past views of the creator while keeping past enjoyment of the creation shielded,” said Sally MyungJin Shin , assistant professor of marketing at the Muma College of Business and the study’s lead author.
Rather than focusing on how scandals damage fans’ present-day admiration of an artist, Shin and her co-authors — Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania and Gal Zauberman of Yale University — wanted to investigate if a fall from grace could reshape past attitudes.
The researchers found that supporters reevaluated their past fondness for the creator but preserved their fond memories of the creations.
This psychological phenomenon isn’t limited to television actors. It crosses from film to music.
When listeners learned about Ray Charles’s history of parental negligence, their present-day opinions of both him and his music declined. However, their memories of how much they loved his music remained just as positive and protected.
A similar pattern emerged with John Lennon. When introduced to Lennon’s history of physical abuse, present admiration for both him and his music dropped. Yet people still remembered loving his music just as much as before.
The researchers conducted the study through five experiments examining participants’ evaluations of creators and their work before and after they learned about creator transgressions.
Rather than resetting the entire memory from the past, their brains performed what the researchers called “moral surgery.” In doing so, people rewrote how they remembered the creator while leaving the memories of their work completely untouched.
“Most surprisingly, the ability to separate art from the artist exists only when we look back in time,” Shin said.
Human psychology resolves the inner conflict, Shin said. By quietly looking back and lowering their opinion of the person, people protect their happy memories and personal nostalgia from being ruined.
A PDF of the journal article can be found here .
###
About the University of South Florida
The University of South Florida is a top-ranked research university serving approximately 50,000 students from across the globe at campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and USF Health. In 2026, U.S. News & World Report recognized USF as a top 50 public university for the eighth consecutive year. U.S. News also ranks the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine in the highest tier, placing it as one of the top 16 medical schools in the nation. USF is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), a group that includes only the top 3% of universities in the U.S. With an all-time high of $775 million in research funding in 2025 and as a top 20 public university for producing U.S. patents, USF uses innovation to transform lives and shape a better future. The university generates an annual economic impact of nearly $10 billion for the state of Florida. USF’s Division I athletics teams compete in the American Conference. Learn more at www.usf.edu .
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Experimental study
People
Moral surgery: Negative revelations differentially alter retrospective evaluations of creators and creations
8-Sep-2026