Gender and Working Memory Based Differences in Emotional False Memory

False memory (FM) has been widely studied using the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Across two experiments,the present work examined the roles of emotional valence, gender, and working memory capacity (WMC) in false and correct recall and recognition. Experiment 1 (N = 124) tested the prediction that women would show greater FM for emotionally valenced lists than men. Participants studied positive, negative, and neutral DRM lists and completed recall and recognition tests. Contrary to predictions, the Gender x Valence interactions were nonsignificant for both false recall and false recognition. Experiment 2 (N = 205) was a planned replication and extension that incorporated measures of WMC (RSPAN, SymSpan, and backward digit span). Higher WMC was associated with greater correct recall and recognition and with lower false recall and recognition. Women showed greater correct recall and recognition in Experiment 2, but the predicted gender differences in FM did not emerge. Across both experiments, negative lists generally produced the greatest false recognition, whereas false recall was generally lower for positive than negative lists. Overall, these findings do not support a general gender difference in emotional FM, limiting the generality of the previously reported Gender x Valence effect. Instead, emotional valence and WMC were more consistent predictors of memory performance.