These gender differences were demonstrated in a study in which adult
men and women were asked to recall childhood experiences (Davis, 1999).
Participants were cued with a series of emotional words and phrases, such as
“feeling rejected” or“getting something you really wanted. ”As shown in
Figure 16.4, women recalled more emotional memories from childhood than
did men. Moreover, this was true for each emotion examined, whether positive
or negative. When the investigator compared similar recall in male and femalestudents in grades 3, 5, 8, and 11, she found a similar pattern. That is, regard-
less of age, females are better able to recall emotional memories than males.
Interestingly, the researcher found no gender differences when men and womenwere asked to recall nonemotional memories.
This tendency for women to recall more emotional memories could help
explain why women suffer from depression more often than men (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001). Not only do women remember sad experiences more often
than men, but recalling one unhappy incident is also likely to activate memo-
ries about other sad events.
Memories About Relationships
Another line of research looks at the extent to which men and women consider
relationships when they organize self-relevant information. Drawing from the
work on individualist and collectivist cultures (Chapter 1), some psychologists
argue that the way men and women are raised in our society causes them to
form different cognitive representations of themselves (Cross & Madson, 1997).
Men are said to develop independent self-construals .T h a ti s ,m e n ’ss e l f -
concepts are relatively unrelated to the cognitive representations they have for510152025
Guilty Self-Conscious Fear Angry Sad HappyNumber of Memories Recalled
Recall ConditionsWomen
Men
FIGURE 16.4 Recall of Emotional Childhood Memories
Source: From “Gender differences in autobiographical memory of childhood emotional experience, ”by
P. J. Davis, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1999, 76, 498 –510. Copyright © 1999 by the
American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission of the American Psychological Association.442 CHAPTER 16 The Cognitive Approach