title: Brief report: Violent false memories and engagement in aggressive and delinquent behavior: an investigation in adolescents.
abstract: The present study investigates the relationship between violent false memories and delinquent and aggressive behavior in a sample of adolescents. Two hundred eleven participants completed measures of aggressive and delinquent behavior and performed a modified version of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, a false memory task for lists of associated words. Participants were presented with a list of ambiguously violent words and three lists of neutral words. For each list a free recall task was performed. Violent false memories were significantly associated with delinquent behaviors in both genders, whereas a significant correlation with aggressive behaviors was found only in males. A multilevel multiple regression showed that the prediction of delinquent behaviors was improved by entering violent false memories into the model as a further predictor, whereas no effect was found for aggressive behaviors. These findings indicate a significant association of violent false memories with delinquent behavior in adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Department of NEUROFARBA - Section of Psychology, University of Florence, Italy. Electronic address: manila.vannucci@psico.unifi.it.
authors.forename: Manila
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vannucci
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Annalaura
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nocentini
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chiorri
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Ersilia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Menesini
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Aggressive behavior; Antisocial behavior; Delinquent behavior; False memories