A gender difference in the false recall of negative words: Women DRM more than men

Abstract

Gender differences in susceptibility to associative memory illusions in the Deese/Roediger–McDermott paradigm were investigated using negative and neutral word lists. Women (n=50) and men (n=50) studied 20 lists of 12 words that were associates of a non-presented critical lure. Ten lists were associates of negatively valenced lures (e.g., cry, evil) and ten were associates of neutral lures (e.g., chair, slow). When asked to recall the words after each list, women falsely recalled more negative lures than men, but there was no gender difference in the false recall of neutral lures. These findings suggest that women reflect on associations within negative lists to a greater degree than men and are thereby more likely to generate the negative critical lures.

Keywords:

• False memory
• Emotion
• Gender

Notes

¹A reviewer of an earlier draft of this article suggested that the gender difference for negative lists might be influenced by changes in mood across the study phase. In order to investigate this, we compared men's and women's false recall of critical lures from the first half of the lists with those from the second half. There was no sign of false recall increasing over time with either list type, as levels of false recall for the second half of the lists were either identical to or slightly lower than those for the first half. The same reviewer also suggested that correct recall may have been influenced by gender differences in serial position effects. In order to test this, we partitioned the study items from each list into three blocks of four (items from positions 1–4, 5–8, and 9–12) and conducted statistical analyses to determine whether serial position interacted with gender or list type. There was a significant interaction between list type and serial position, which was due to a higher primacy effect for the negative lists, but this was the case for both male and female participants. There were no significant interactions involving gender.