Memories can be significantly altered in conversations with others and previous research shows that ingroup members have elevated influence on our memories. While most previous mnemonic ingroup advantages have been limited to single discreet episodes, episodic memory crucially also involves flexible processes, through which separate episodes can be recombined to extract new knowledge. Therefore, we tested whether associative inferences across separate but related events are enhanced by an ingroup persona presenting the information. In three separate studies (N_Study1=53, N_Study2=68, N_Study3=68), participants encoded episodes made up of two elements (AB) and later overlapping episodes (BC). The ABs were presented either by an ingroup or an outgroup persona. Participants were tested on indirect inferential associations (AC), direct pairs, and source memory.

In Studies 1 and 3, where ingroup and outgroup were made up of two personas each, participants were more accurate and confident for inferences based on ingroup information compared to outgroup information. This effect disappeared when there was only one persona per group (Study 2), indicating that a group perception may be critical. The ingroup inference advantage was linked to different source monitoring demands, with outgroup source information potentially being given priority over encoding the information itself. In conclusion, we showed that mnemonic ingroup advantages extend to flexible processes, which can contribute to the spreading of bias in an individual’s knowledge network.