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Gender Differences in False Memory Production
GRANT BAUSTE F. RICHARD FERRARO
University of North Dakota
The present study investigated differences in false memory production between men and women, using the Deese/Roedgier McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Five word lists were used (MAN, GIRL, BREAD, BLACK, HIGH) and it was predicted that males would produce more false memories for the MAN word list while females will produce more false memories for the GIRL word list. Results did not confirm our predictions. Gender was neither a significant main effect, nor did it interact with any factors. Test and List x Test were the only significant main or interaction effects, respectively. Results are discussed as they relate to gender differences in cognitive processing.
A false memory is operationally defined as the remembering of an event that either never occurred or remembering the event quite differently from the way it actually occurred (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Across a wide variety of studies, subjects routinely recognize or recall never-occurred words as frequently as words that were actually presented. Recent research has been focused on gender stereotypes and how each gender will recall critical items associated with their own gender.
Lenton, Blair, and Hastie (2001) found that participants that had been exposed to a list of masculine or feminine gender roles (e.g., nurse vs. doctor) were more likely to falsely recognize stereotypically related roles than unrelated roles. This study demonstrates that females and males respond falsely to the word lists for their specific gender. What this study does not show is if there is a difference between genders for creating false memories.
More recently, DeMayo and Diliberto (2003) also examined false memories for gender stereotype information using a picture version of the false memory paradigm. These authors found a reliable false memory effect for non-represented lure pictures and also found that this false memory effect was greater for pictures that depicted stereotypical female activities, or chores (i.e., ironing clothes, dusting), than for pictures depicting a stereotypical male activity, or chore (i.e., sawing a tree, taking out the trash). Interestingly, these authors found no evidence (no main or interaction effects) of either sex of subject or sex of picture as it related to false memory production.
Two other studies (Banaji & Hardin,...