Gender, personality, and involuntary autobiographical memory

We utilised the recently developed continuous word association task (CWAT) to investigate whether attributes of involuntary autobiographical memory, including gender and cue valence effects, were similar to those found for voluntary autobiographical memory, as well as investigating the role of individual differences in memory production. A total of 80 undergraduate volunteers reported involuntary memories that came to mind during the word association task and completed measures of trait dissociation and psychosis-proneness. Involuntary memories showed similar cue valence effects to those typically found with voluntary memories but the usual gender effect was only apparent once participants learned the task involved autobiographical memory. The total number of involuntary autobiographical memories produced in response to negative cue words was related to greater trait dissociation and psychosis-proneness. The implications for differences between voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memory are discussed.