The Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Impacts of the September 11 Attacks: Group Differences in Memory for the Reception Context and the Determinants of Flashbulb Memory

The authors examined group differences in memories for hearing the news of and reactions to the September 11 attacks in 2001. They measured memory for reception context (immediate memory for the circumstances in which people first heard the news) and 11 predictors of the consistency of memory for reception context over time (flashbulb memory). Shortly after 9/11, a questionnaire was distributed to 3,665 participants in 9 countries. U.S. vs. non-U.S. respondents showed large differences in self-rated importance of the news and in memory for event-related facts. The groups showed moderate differences in background knowledge and emotional-feeling states. Within non-U.S. groups, there were large differences for emotional-feeling states and moderate differences for personal rehearsal, background knowledge, and attitudes toward the United States. The authors discuss the implications of those findings for the study of group differences in memory and for the formation of flashbulb memories.

Patterns of hemispheric perceptual asymmetries: left hemispatial biases predict changes in anxiety and positive affect in undergraduate women

Consistent with the tripartite model of anxiety and depression, hemispheric asymmetries may be differentially associated with depressive and anxious symptoms. Indeed, research has demonstrated that asymmetries do exist when examining hemispatial biases in both anxious and depressed individuals; however, the magnitude and direction of these asymmetries has been variable. The Chimeric Faces Task was used here to measure these asymmetries, along with measures for current and future levels of anxiety and depression. Results indicated that (a) increased left hemispatial biases at Time 1 predict increased anxiety (i.e., physiological hyperarousal) at Time 2 among female undergraduate students and (b) decreased left hemispatial biases at Time 1 predict decreased positive affectivity at Time 2 among the same participants. The possibility that hemispatial biases represent a vulnerability to future anxiety and depression is discussed.

Differential roles of depressive and anxious symptoms and gender in defensiveness

Among a sample of Air Force cadets facing the prospect of basic training (N= 1,190; 1,005 men and 185 women), the influence of a defensive test-taking style on measures of depressive and anxious symptoms was examined. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck & Steer, 1987) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988), as well as the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) L scale. Results supported hypotheses that defensiveness would affect a self-report measure of depression but not a self-report measure of anxiety and would do so more among men than women. Applied implications of the results are discussed.

PHYSIOLOGICAL HYPERAROUSAL AS A SPECIFIC CORRELATE OF SYMPTOMS OF ANXIETY AMONG YOUNG PSYCHIATRIC INPATIENTS

Neuropsychological, cognitive, and factor-analytic models of anxiety and depression consistently view the physiological hyperarousal (PH) factor as a specific component of anxiety disorders and symptoms. In the present study, young psychiatric inpatients were assessed on self-report measures of PH, anxiety, and depression. PH was associated with symptoms of anxiety, but not depressive symptoms, consistent with the specificity of PH to symptoms of anxiety.