Date of Award

Spring 5-7-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Department

Psychology

College

College of Science

First Advisor

Andrew Terranova

Abstract/Description

Cognitive and emotional processes are increasingly recognized as important factors influencing memory functioning. In the current study, the associations between depressive symptoms, selfcritical rumination, sleep quality, and cognitive confidence with self-referent memory recall were examined in a sample of undergraduate students (N = 60; 70.0% female, 21.7% male; M age = 19.36 years, SD = 1.21). The sample was predominantly White (73.2%), with additional representation from Black or African American (14.3%), American Indian or Alaska Native (1.8%), Asian (1.8%), and other racial groups (8.9%). Using established self-report measures, participants reported on depressive symptoms (Schmitt & Maes, 2000; Sauer et al., 2013), rumination (Smart et al., 2015), sleep quality (Kato, 2013), memory and cognitive confidence (Nedeljkovic & Kyrios, 2007), and completed a self-referent recall task assessing memory for positive, negative, and neutral trait adjectives (Vázquez et al., 2008). Findings indicated that depressive symptoms and rumination were positively associated with poorer sleep quality and lower cognitive confidence across domains. Additionally, higher levels of rumination were associated with greater recall of negative self-referent information. Lower cognitive confidence was also associated with reduced recall performance, particularly for neutral information. Contrary to expectations, depressive symptoms were not significantly associated with recall of emotional information. These findings suggest that rumination and cognitive confidence may play a more direct role in shaping memory processes than depressive symptoms alone. Future research should further examine these relationships using longitudinal and experimental designs to better understand causal mechanisms.

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