Effects of Weight Consciousness, Circadian Arousal, and Depression on Young Women’s Memory

Christie Chung, Frishta Sharifi, Sara Harris
DOI: 10.4236/psych.2011.27112                

Abstract

Weight consciousness has been found to significantly affect women’s cognitive performance. In the present study, the effects of circadian arousal and depression were investigated by examining the relationship between young women’s weight consciousness and memory performance. College women were tested on a picture recall task consisting of neutral and weight-related pictures. Participants were categorized into morning, evening, and intermediate types, and were tested either in the morning or late afternoon/evening (peak and non-peak testing times, or control). Our results showed that participants who were weight conscious were also more depressed. When tested at non-peak times, depressed participants recalled significantly more weight-related pictures than neutral pictures, while non-depressed participants did not show this recall pattern. These results suggest that young women with depression are less likely to inhibit memory of weight-related pictures when tested at their non-peak times of the day.

Keywords

Memory, Women, Weight Consciousness, Circadian Arousal, Depression

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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