Gender and age differences in the recall of affective autobiographical memories using the autobiographical memory test
Introduction
There is extensive literature in the field of autobiographical memory that uses the procedure known as the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) (for a review see Williams et al., 2007). Mainly, AMT has been mainly used to analyze the overgeneral memory phenomenon. However, few studies have focused on the analysis of the emotional valence of memories derived from it (Drummond, Dritschel, Astell, O’Carroll, & Dalgleish, 2006, with dysphoric children; McNally, Litz, Prassas, Shin, & Weathers, 1994, with subjects with post-traumatic stress disorder). The results of both studies suggest that clinical participants recalled more negative events and less positive events than their respective control groups. Nevertheless, no studies of the emotional valence of memories derived from the AMT exist with population without psychopathology. This article aims to study how age and gender can influence the positive and negative valence of autobiographical memories derived from the AMT in normal population without clinical psychopathology.
Section snippets
Age and emotional valence of memories
Numerous studies have found positivity effects in the autobiographical memory of older adults. Priority is given to emotionally gratifying information and items that may increase negative emotion are forgotten (Mather & Carstensen, 2005). Thereby, when shown stimuli of different affective valence, positive items remain longer in the memory of older adults than they do in younger adults (Mather, 2006). On the other hand, young adults show negative effects in their memories: they remember more
Gender and emotional valence of memories
Though male and female participants have been included in most autobiographical memory research, the effects of gender have been either neglected or of secondary interest. Furthermore, findings across studies are inconsistent, with some researchers reporting no gender differences (e.g., Kihlstrom and Harackiewicz, 1982, Strongman and Kemp, 1991) and others finding differences in favor of females (e.g., Dudycha and Dudycha, 1933, Mullens, 1993).
Fujita, Diener, and Sandvick (1991) found that
The present study
Theory and research suggest that age and gender affect the emotional valence of the autobiographical memories, but the literature focusing on the analysis of the effects of the interaction between gender and age on emotional valence of memories has been sparse. The present study sought to conduct this analysis on a sample of younger men and women and on a sample of older men and women, both groups having no psychiatric disorders. Using the AMT procedure to elicit emotional autobiographical
Participants
Forty-six older adults (35 women and 11 men; ages 57–80 years; M = 65.98, SD = 5.54; educational level: only completed elementary school 8.7%, only completed secondary school, 23.9% and attended university, 67.4%) and 50 younger adults (29 women and 21 men; ages 23–30 years; M = 26.59, SD = 2.07; education level: only completed elementary school 0%, only completed secondary school, 18% and attended university, 82%) participated in this study. All participants were evaluated previously with the Mini
Preliminary analysis
The descriptive statistics of the primary study variables in age and sex groups are shown in Table 1. As regards emotional valence of memories in age groups, we found significant differences between the two groups for negative memories to negative cue words (M−CW−), t(94) = −1.28, p = .202: the older adults remembered fewer negative events in response to negative cue words than the younger adults did. Finally, the CES-D variable was greater in the younger group than in the older group, t(94) = −0.27,
Discussion
The main objective of this study was to analyze the positive and negative memories derived from the AMT and how they are influenced by age and gender. We expected that older persons would retrieve fewer negative memories than younger adults and we also expected that women would remember more both positive and negative memories than men.
As regards the age, the main differences between the two groups arise from the negative cue words: the older adults retrieved fewer negative memories in response
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