Overgeneral Autobiographical Memories: Gender Differences in Depression

Abstract

Considering the higher prevalence of depression in women than in men, the study of the variables that underlie this gender difference becomes important for both the prevention and the treatment of depression. This study explores gender differences in the relationship between depressive symptoms, rumination, repressive coping, and overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) in a nonclinical population. There are 141 men and 148 women who completed the measures of depression, rumination, and repression, and the Autobiographical Memory Test to assess OGM. Women remembered a higher number of specific memories than men. Most importantly, results showed a different pattern of association between rumination, repression, depression, and OGM by gender. Depressive symptoms were associated with repressive coping and OGM in women. However, depressive symptomatology was related to repressive coping but not to OGM in men. These results suggest that the role of OGM in depression may be less important in men than in women.

Functional neuroimaging of sex differences in autobiographical memory recall in depression

“…The difference in how specific AMs are recalled may contribute to sex differences in MDD prevalence. While both males and females have the same cognitive deficit (overgeneral AM recall), only in females has this deficit been related to depressive symptoms (Ros et al 2014), a finding confirmed in the current study. In many regions found to differentiate males and females with MDD, HC, and MDD males did not differ from each other, while MDD females differed from both HC males and females.…”

“…Finally, to determine whether AM overgenerality was differentially associated with depressive symptoms in males and females as previously reported (Ros et al 2014), Pearson correlations were performed between HDRS scores and the percent of specific, specific positive, and specific negative AMs recalled separately for MDD males and females.…”

Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Short Depressive Rumination Scale in a Nonclinical Sample

“…Based on the functioning of this construct in previous research, in addition to an association with depression, we expect a higher presence of depressive rumination in women than in men (e.g. Ros et al, 2014) and a negative association of rumination with age (Ricarte, Navarro et al, 2016). We expect our data analysis confirm a single factor structure as well as a positive association between the total score of the scale and both depression and rumination scores as measured by other instruments.…”

Coping style and memory specificity in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse

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