Self-Reported, but Not Lab-Based, Prospective Memory Failures Relate to PTSD Symptom Severity in a General Population

Recent research suggests a relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomseverity and prospective memory (PM)—memory for future intentions—in clinical samples (i.e., veterans with PTSD; e.g., Glienke et al., 2017; Korinek et al., 2021; McFarland et al., 2016; Scott et al., 2016) and a general, nonclinical population (i.e., university students; e.g., Swain & Takarangi, 2021). However, research using this nonclinical sample relied solely on self-report measures of PM, which might be biased (e.g., by negative beliefs). Here, we asked nonclinical participants to complete self-report measures, in addition to in-lab, behavioral PM tasks. PTSD symptom severity correlated with self-report PM (rs =.32–.42), but we found no relationship with lab-based PM performance. The self-report and behavioral measures of PM also did not correlate. We note these discrepancies might be explained by biased beliefs, the representativeness of each measure, and/or the nature of the experimental environment.