TY - JOUR
T1 - Gender differences in the experienced emotional intensity of experimentally induced memories of negative scenes
AU - Staugaard, Søren Risløv
AU - Berntsen, Dorthe
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - It is well documented that women have an increased risk of emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Such disorders are typically characterized by intrusive memories and rumination of past events, but findings are mixed as to whether women have enhanced access to memories of emotional events. Some studies have found that women, compared with men, report more frequent and more intense memories of emotionally stressful events, whereas other studies have failed to replicate this effect. These conflicting findings may reflect the use of different memory sampling techniques (e.g., retrospective vs. experimental data) and limited control for factors associated with both gender and emotional memory. The purpose of the present study was to investigate gender differences in memory for emotionally negative events, using three different sampling methods, while at the same time controlling for parameters that might co-vary with gender. Consistent with some previous studies, we found that women and men did not differ in their frequencies of emotionally negative involuntary memories. However, women rated their memories as more intense and arousing than men did, and women also reported higher increases in state anxiety after retrieval. Female gender accounted for unique variance in the emotional intensity and subjective arousal associated with negative memories, when controlling for other theoretically derived variables. The findings provide evidence that female gender is associated with a stronger emotional response to memories of negative events, but not that women remember such events more frequently than men do.
AB - It is well documented that women have an increased risk of emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Such disorders are typically characterized by intrusive memories and rumination of past events, but findings are mixed as to whether women have enhanced access to memories of emotional events. Some studies have found that women, compared with men, report more frequent and more intense memories of emotionally stressful events, whereas other studies have failed to replicate this effect. These conflicting findings may reflect the use of different memory sampling techniques (e.g., retrospective vs. experimental data) and limited control for factors associated with both gender and emotional memory. The purpose of the present study was to investigate gender differences in memory for emotionally negative events, using three different sampling methods, while at the same time controlling for parameters that might co-vary with gender. Consistent with some previous studies, we found that women and men did not differ in their frequencies of emotionally negative involuntary memories. However, women rated their memories as more intense and arousing than men did, and women also reported higher increases in state anxiety after retrieval. Female gender accounted for unique variance in the emotional intensity and subjective arousal associated with negative memories, when controlling for other theoretically derived variables. The findings provide evidence that female gender is associated with a stronger emotional response to memories of negative events, but not that women remember such events more frequently than men do.
KW - AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
KW - IMAGERY
KW - INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES
KW - INFORMATION
KW - INVOLUNTARY MEMORIES
KW - POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER
KW - RECALL
KW - SEX-DIFFERENCES
KW - TRAUMA
KW - VOLUNTARY
KW - Arousal/physiology
KW - Humans
KW - Life Change Events
KW - Mental Recall/physiology
KW - Male
KW - Emotions/physiology
KW - Sex Characteristics
KW - Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology
KW - Memory/physiology
KW - Sex Factors
KW - Adult
KW - Female
KW - Retrospective Studies
KW - Stress, Psychological/psychology
U2 - 10.1007/s00426-020-01334-z
DO - 10.1007/s00426-020-01334-z
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 32277252
SN - 0340-0727
VL - 85
SP - 1732
EP - 1747
JO - Psychological Research
JF - Psychological Research
IS - 4
ER -