ABSTRACT
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORRY SYMPTOMS OF GENERALIZED
ANXIETY DISORDER AND TRUE MEMORY, FALSE MEMORY, AND
METAMEMORY
by
Nesha Harper
Chairperson: Dr. Thadeus Meeks
The current study examined the relationship between the worry symptoms of Generalized
Anxiety Disorder (GAD), free recall memory, false memory, and metamemory. More
specifically, the current research investigated the relationship between high levels of worry
and individuals’ ability to accurately recall and recognize true and false memories of
negative and neutral material and to determine the role worry played in an individual’s
prediction that they would remember negative and neutral words. In addition, the present
study examined whether the prediction of remembering negative and neutral material
coincided with actual memory performance. Participants (n = 62) were recruited from
undergraduate Introductory Psychology, Statistics, and Senior Capstone courses at a
medium-sized Midwestern public university. The participants were sorted into either a high
or low worry group, and there were 31 participants in each group. All participants completed
a demographics questionnaire, a measure of worry symptoms, a measure of depressive
symptoms, judgment of learning (JOL) ratings, free recall tasks, math distractor tasks, and a
false memory task. The hypotheses of the present study will be discussed herein. The results
of the study did not support the majority of the hypotheses, but the individual results are
discussed herein. The possible implications of the study relate to the role that high anxiety
levels have both on academic performance and in clinical settings.

دریافت کل پایان نامه