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What predicts overgeneral memory in youth? Testing the CaR-FA-X model longitudinally in community adolescents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2018

Charlotte Gutenbrunner ,
Karen Salmon  and
Paul E. Jose
Charlotte Gutenbrunner*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
Karen Salmon
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
Paul E. Jose
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Charlotte Gutenbrunner, School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Overgeneral autobiographical memory, the tendency to report general memories when asked to report specific event recollections, has been implicated in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. The dominant model of overgeneral memory, the CaR-FA-X model (Williams et al., 2007), proposes that three cognitive processes (increased rumination and avoidance, and reduced executive control) either independently, or in interaction, interfere with successful memory retrieval. Although psychopathology increases significantly during adolescence, no research has tested this model in its entirety, including interaction effects, longitudinally in community youth. We tested the model with 323 adolescents (152 females, 171 males) across four annual assessment points. Increased avoidance predicted higher proportions of overgeneral memories from Time 3 to Time 4, but this association was stronger for youth with elevated depressive symptoms across the four waves, and limited to memories generated in response to negative cue words. This finding may indicate that youth with stable higher levels of depression remember in an overgeneral way to avoid re-elicitation of negative event-related emotions. In youth with lower depression levels across time, the CaR-FA-X mechanisms did not predict overgeneral memory.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , May 2019 , pp. 759 - 770
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

This research was supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund (VUW1308) (to K.S. and P.J. and associate investigators Richard Bryant, Robyn Fivush, and Elaine Reese). We gratefully acknowledge the schools and students who participated in this study. The authors also thank research fellows and assistants Rebecca Edwards, Ruth Glynn, Sam Knight, Kate Bryson, and Mary Dewhurst and the many students who assisted with data collection and management and who contributed to discussions of the ideas in this paper. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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