SEX Differences

SEX DIFFERENCES IN MEMORY PERFORMANCE IN
RESPONSE TO AN EXAMINATION STRESSOR

Randy Denis

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jaime L. Tartar
Nova Southeastern University, Farquhar College of Arts & Sciences
Undergraduate Divisional Honors Program
Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Winter 2010

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Thesis Signature (Approval) Page
We hereby certify that this thesis, submitted by Randy Denis, conforms to accepted standards and is fully adequate in scope and quality to fulfill the thesis completion for the Divisional
Honors Thesis citation.

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Randy Denis
Student Researcher

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Jaime L. Tartar, PhD
Faculty Advisor for Divisional Honors Thesis

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Thomas Fagan,
Unfortunately, it is difficult to distinguish between easy and difficult tasks. Friedman & Rosenman: Individual Differences
Another serendipitous observation in stress research by Friendman and Rosenman prompted an interest in the connection between personality and stress-related pathologies; they revolutionized the field of stress by providing evidence linking personality traits and cardiopathologies (as reviewed in Greenberg, 2009). These researchers proposed the concept of Type A and Type B personalities. They noted most of their cardiac patients to have Type A characteristics; these personality traits included time urgency, hostility, aggression, competitive attitudes, and ambition. These patients were described to be literately on the “edge of their seat” while waiting in the reception area. On the other hand, Type B behavioral traits began to be used to describe individuals lacking most of the characteristics previously mentioned (as reviewed in Greenberg, 2009). As a result, current researchers are keenly attentive to individual variability in response to both physical and psychological laboratory stressors (Selye, 1978; Rabin, 1999). For
In addition, this study is interested in individual variations to examination stress; for instance, my lab has found it necessary to compare objective measures of stress (cortisol)
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with self-report stress scores (Perceived Stress Scale) (Murphy et al., 2010). Since the
Perceived Stress Scale has been used extensively used for studies using examination week as a natural stressor, the researcher is using this questionnaire to measure general stress rather than a measure of acute stress.
Here it is predicted that, compared to baseline session, acute examination stress would result in a significant increase in cortisol. Consistent with previous work on acute stress and memory, it is further predicted that compared to baseline performance, examination stress would enhance memory performance. In line with previous work on gender differences in stress response, it is also hypothesized that compared to males, females would have less of a rise in cortisol before the examination (compared