Investigating schema-related memory distortions: Do dysphoric college students display negatively biased false memories

Depression and dysphoria (subclinical depression) are associated with mood-congruent memory biases where individuals disproportionately recall negative information. Beck's (1967; 1976) theory suggests that negative schemas (internal representations or scripts about the self, the future and the environment) lead to this tendency to misinterpret information in a mood-consistent but negatively distorted manner. Dysphoria has also been related to memory suggestibility (MacFarland & Morris, 1995), along with producing false memories for general information (Peiffer & Trull, 2000). While these findings suggest that the memories of dysphoric individuals may be uniquely vulnerable to distortion, there has been little explanation as to why this might occur. In particular, it is unknown whether false memories may be produced as an extension of mood-congruent memory biases associated with depression and dysphoria.; In examining these issues, the present study investigated whether or not dysphoric college students would display mood-congruent false memories consistent with using a negative schema to process and retrieve information. In testing this theory, college students with high and low levels of dysphoria were asked to recall event details and word lists that were manipulated to be either negative or positive in emotional valence. It was expected that dysphoric students would display a mood-congruent memory bias for the negative stimuli that matched their schema, resulting in increased suggestibility and false memories for negative events and word lists, in comparison to non-dysphoric students. No differences were expected for memory of positive (i.e., schema-inconsistent) event details or word lists. Additional individual differences in anxiety level and certain related cognitive characteristics (i.e., dissociation, imagery and absorption) were also examined to determine if they were separately predictive of suggestibility and false memory.; Results from 146 undergraduates failed to support predictions. Dysphoria was not associated with suggestibility and false memory for mood-congruent (i.e., negative) event details or words. Dysphoric students did not produce more false memories for negative information than nondysphoric students and were, if anything, slightly more accurate in their recall of information. In extension of previous research, dysphoric students exhibited a specific mood-congruent intrusion bias in that they falsely recognized more negative than positive critical lures on associative word lists. However, this was due to less false recognition of positive information, rather than increased false recognition of negative information, relative to other students. Other individual difference variables, such as anxiety and cognitive characteristics, also failed to predict false memory and suggestibility effects.; Overall, these findings indicated that dysphoric individuals do not produce negatively biased false memories for "objective" information (such as events or word lists). Thus, mood-congruent memory biases associated with dysphoria do not appear to increase suggestibility to general negative information, leading to false memory.; However, future research is needed to determine if these null findings hold true for memories of more emotionally salient or self-referent information. These types of memories may be more closely connected to the schemas of dysphoric individuals, and thus activate a stronger intrusion bias. Additionally, this study did not examine individuals diagnosed with clinical depression, who tend to experience stronger mood-congruent memory biases. As a result, it remains to be determined whether more severe and ongoing depression leads to increased suggestibility and memory distortions, leading to negatively biased false memories for general (i.e., non self-referent) information.