Chapter 16
The Cognitive Approach:
Relevant Research
Gender, Memory, and Self-Construal
Studies of differences in what men and
women recall
 In a study asking men and women to recall either personal
events from the past three years or events from American
history, the women recalled more personal events whereas the
men recalled more impersonal events (Seidlitz & Diener, 1998).
 Two differences between men’s and women’s recall help to
explain this finding:
– Men and women differ in the extent to which self-relevant (i.e.,
personal) information is associated with emotions.
– Men and women also differ in the extent to which information
about themselves is associated with information about their
personal relationships.
Gender differences in the recall of
emotional memories
 Because females in our culture are socialized to pay attention to
their own emotions and other people’s emotions from an early
age, women should be more likely than men to attend to and
process information about emotions.
 Memories for both positive and negative emotional events
should therefore be more accessible for women than for men.
 This prediction was confirmed in a study by Davis (1999). The
participants in this study were cued with a series of emotional
words and phrases such as “feeling rejected” and “getting
something you really wanted.” In response to these cues, women
were able to remember more childhood events relevant to the
emotions than men were.
Number of emotional childhood memories
recalled (Davis, 1999)
25
Women
Men
20
15
10
5
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d
Sa
ry
g
An
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a
Fe
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Gender differences in self-concept and in
memories about relationships
 Because females in our culture are socialized to develop more
interdependent self-construals than males, the content of women’s
self-concepts should reflect this difference.
 In a study by Mackie (1983) that used the “Who Am I?” test,
women’s spontaneous self-descriptions included more statements
than the men’s about their role relationships as parents and family
members.
 In a study by Clancy and Dollinger (1993), women and men were
given 12-exposure cameras and asked to use them to “describe who
you are as you see yourself.” The women’s photos more often
showed self with others than self alone, whereas the men’s photos
more often showed self alone than self with others.
Who Am I?
1. I am:
2. I am:
3. I am:
4. I am:
5. I am:
6. I am:
7. I am:
8. I am:
9. I am:
10. I am:
Gender differences in self-concept and in
memories about relationships
 Because females in our culture are socialized to develop more
interdependent self-construals than males, the content of women’s
self-concepts should reflect this difference.
 In a study by Mackie (1983) that used the “Who Am I?” test,
women’s spontaneous self-descriptions included more statements
than the men’s about their role relationships as parents and family
members.
 In a study by Clancy and Dollinger (1993), women and men were
given 12-exposure cameras and asked to use them to “describe who
you are as you see yourself.” The women’s photos more often
showed self with others than self alone, whereas the men’s photos
more often showed self alone than self with others.
Number of photographs used to portray self with
others versus self alone (Clancy & Dollinger, 1993)
5
4
3
Men
Women
2
1
0
Self with others
Self alone
Cognitions and Depression
The depressive cognitive triad (Beck,1972)
Depressed people:
–
typically have negative thoughts
about themselves.
– are pessimistic about the future.
– tend to interpret ongoing
experiences in a negative manner.
In other words, depressed people
look at the world through very
dark glasses.
Depressive schemas
 In a study by Derry and Kuiper (1981), depressed patients and two
groups of nondepressed individuals responded to a list of adjectives by
pressing a YES or NO button to indicate if the word described them or
not.
 Half of the words were related to depression (bleak, dismal, helpless),
whereas the other half were not.
 The researchers then surprised the participants by giving them 3
minutes to recall and write down as many of the stimulus words as
they could.
 As predicted, the depressed patients remembered the depressionassociated words better, whereas nondepressed patients and normals
remembered the other words better, suggesting the operation of a
depressive schema in the depressed patients.
Proportion of self-descriptive words recalled
(Derry & Kuiper, 1981)
50
45
40
35
30
D w ords
25
ND w ords
20
15
10
5
0
D patients
ND patients
ND norm als
Depressive schemas
 Pace and Dixon (1993) compared the tendency to recall
depression-related words before and after receiving cognitive
therapy for depression. They found that the treatment resulted in
a reduced recall of depression-related words, and this effect was
still evident one month after the completion of therapy.
 Clark and Teasdale (1982) gave depressed clients a series of
words such a train and ice and asked them to recall real-life
experiences that each word brought to mind. Each client was
tested twice, once when feeling particularly depressed and once
when feeling less depressed. Significantly more of the
experiences recalled during the depressed period were unhappy
ones.
Percentage of depression-related words recalled by
therapy clients (Pace & Dixon, 1993)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Before
treatment
After treatment
One-month
follow-up
Depressive schemas
 Pace and Dixon (1993) compared the tendency to recall negative
words before and after receiving cognitive therapy for
depression. They found that the treatment resulted in a reduced
recall of depressing words, and this effect was still evident one
month after the completion of therapy.
 Clark and Teasdale (1982) gave depressed clients a series of
words such a train and ice and asked them to recall real-life
experiences that each word brought to mind. Each client was
tested twice, once when feeling particularly depressed and once
when feeling less depressed. Significantly more of the
experiences recalled during the depressed period were unhappy
ones.
Percentages of happy and unhappy
experiences recalled (Clark & Teasdale, 1982)
55
45
Happy experiences
Unhappy experiences
35
25
When depressed
When less depressed
Learned Helplessness Revisited:
Attributional Model and Explanatory Style
Examples of attributions by a failing student
(Abramson et al., 1978)
Internal
Stable
Global
Specific
Unstable
External
Stable
Unstable
Lack of general
intelligence
Exhaustion
ETS gives unfair
tests
Bad luck: today is
Friday the 13th
Laziness
I was ill and couldn’t
think clearly
ETS tests for
boring, useless
information
The new proctor is
inexperienced and
gives confusing
instructions
I lack ability in
mathematics
I got fed up doing the
math items
ETS gives unfair
math tests
My copy of the math
test was numbered 13
Math always
bores me
I confused sines with
cosines just long
enough to miss all the
trigonometry items
Math tests are
hard for most
people
The copies of the
math test were
blurred