Remembering talk: Individual and gender differences in reported speech

Abstract

This study examined individual and group differences in the nature and frequency of reports of past speech in the autobiographical memories of young adults. A sample of 108 participants (60 females, 48 males) responded in writing to six memory prompts. They also completed the Five Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). The frequency with which participants used reported speech was correlated with agreeableness, openness, and expressivity; however, regression analyses indicated that narrators’ gender alone was the best predictor. Females used more reported speech than did males. The findings suggest that recollections of past speech are an under-appreciated yet important component of autobiographical memory.

Notes

¹Unless otherwise noted, examples come from the data gathered for the current study.

²Narrative length can affect the likelihood of finding a single instance of reported speech. Johnstone does not report data on the length of the narratives she analysed. The examples she cites suggest that they were likely, on average, longer than the individual memory reports analysed here, but shorter than our (within-participant) pooled autobiographical discourse.