Gender Differences in Episodic Encoding of Autobiographical Memory

Gender differences in autobiographical memory have been widely reported; in this study, those differences were considered with regard to episodic and semantic memory, and encoding and retrieval. Participants reported memory narratives of two events that had occurred within a day of the report. They were re-tested on them 10-13 weeks later. Narratives were content coded for internal and external details, a method meant to reflect episodic and semantic memory, respectively. Results indicate gender differences in internal details at Time 1 that remained stable at Time 2, suggesting that encoding is the more promising approach to understanding gender differences in this domain and showing consistency with previous research and theory. Gender differences in external details were minimal, but implicated encoding when present.