抑郁症状中学生自我相关生活事件的回忆、再认和启动效应特点

采用Tversky的实验设计,对非抑郁和抑郁症状中学生的回忆、再认和启动效应进行了探讨。实验发现,抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工存在负性回忆、负性再认、负性启动和负性加工偏向;抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工的回忆具有情境一致性;对再认材料的不同加工深度影响抑郁症状中学生自我相关生活事件信息加工的再认;抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工的负性启动主要是由于对负性条目、中性条目的负性偏向加工引起     

Depressive Symptoms,Criticism, and Counter‐Criticism in Marital Interactions

Although people with depressive symptoms face criticism, hostility, and rejection in their close relationships, we do not know how they respond. Following interpersonal theories of depression, it might be expected that depressive symptoms would be associated with a tendency to receive and also to express criticism toward one's spouse, and that at least some of this criticism would be a contingent response to criticism received (i.e., “counter‐criticism”). However, other research has determined that depressive symptoms/behaviors suppress partner criticism, suggesting that depressed people might respond to partner criticism similarly, by subsequently expressing less criticism. In a sample of 112 married couples, partial correlations, regressions, and Actor‐Partner Interdependence Modeling indicated that lower criticism and counter‐criticism expression during a laboratory marital interaction task was associated with higher depressive symptoms, especially when such individuals were clinically depressed. Furthermore, during a separate and private Five‐Minute Speech Sample, lower criticism by partners was associated with higher depressive symptoms, especially when those who chose the interaction topic were also clinically depressed. All analyses controlled for relationship adjustment. These results suggest that spouses with higher depressive symptoms and clinical depression diagnoses may be suppressing otherwise ordinary criticism expression toward their nondepressed partners; furthermore, nondepressed partners of depressed people are especially likely to display less criticism toward their spouse in a private task.     

Judgement of control revisited: Are the depressed realistic or pessimistic?

The study, firstly, examined the depressive realism postulate in relation to control judgments. A group of depressed and nondepressed undergraduates were exposed to a total of six judgement of control tasks (from 0% control tio 100% control). Depressed and nondepressed subjects did not differ in their control judgements. Secondlym, an attempt is made to classify subjects on the basis of these six judgements of control tasks as optimisticm, realistic and pessimistic in perceived control judgements.It was found that pessimistic rather than realistic subjects, had higher depressive symptomatology. Lastly, pessimism about control predicted the depressive symptomatology as assessed three months later. The results are discussed in relation to the phenomenon of depressive realism and the hopelessness theory of depression.     

Depressive realism and outcome density bias in contingency judgments: the effect of the context and intertrial interval

The perception of the effectiveness of instrumental actions is influenced by depressed mood. Depressive realism (DR) is the claim that depressed people are particularly accurate in evaluating instrumentality. In two experiments, the authors tested the DR hypothesis using an action-outcome contingency judgment task. DR effects were a function of intertrial interval length and outcome density, suggesting that depressed mood is accompanied by reduced contextual processing rather than increased judgment accuracy. The DR effect was observed only when participants were exposed to extended periods in which no actions or outcomes occurred. This implies that DR may result from an impairment in contextual processing rather than accurate but negative expectations. Therefore, DR is consistent with a cognitive distortion view of depression.     

When depression breeds contempt: reassurance seeking, self-esteem, and rejection of depressed college students by their roommates.

To test Coyne's (1976b) theory of depression, students' levels of depressive symptoms, reassurance seeking, and self-esteem were assessed at Time 1, and their same-gender roommates' appraisals of them were assessed 5 weeks later. Mildly depressed students engaged in the type of reassurance seeking described by Coyne. Among men, but not women, mildly depressed students were rejected if they strongly sought reassurance and had low self-esteem but not if they did not seek reassurance or had high self-esteem. Although induction of depressed symptoms in roommates did occur, this contagion effect did not account for the depression-rejection relationship. The prediction that unsupportive, intolerant, or unempathic others would be particularly likely to respond with rejection to reassurance-seeking depressed students with low self-esteem received partial support. Implications for future work on the interpersonal aspects of depression are discussed.     

Enduring cognitive dysfunction in unipolar major depression: A test–retest study using the Stroop paradigm

Hammar, Å., Sørensen, L., Årdal, G., Oedegaard, K.J., Kroken, R., Roness, A. & Lund, A. (2009). Enduring cognitive dysfunction in unipolar major depression: A test–retest study using the Stroop‐paradigm. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. The aim of the study was to investigate automatic and effortful information processing with the Stroop paradigm in a long term perspective in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Patients were tested at two test occasions: at inclusion with a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) score >18, and after 6 months, when most patients had experienced symptom reduction. The Stroop paradigm is considered to measure aspects of attention and executive functioning and consists of three conditions/cards: naming the color of the patches (Color), reading of the color‐words (Word) and naming the ink color of color‐words (Color‐Word). The Color‐Word condition is proved to be the most cognitive demanding task and requires the proband to actively suppress interference and is therefore considered to require more effortful information processing, whereas naming the color of the patches and reading the color‐words are expected to be more automatic and less cognitive demanding. A homogenous group of 19 patients with unipolar recurrent MDD according to DSM‐IV and a HDRS score of >18 were included in the study. A control group was individually matched for age, gender and level of education. Depressed patients performed equal to the control group on the Color and Word cards at both test occasions. However, the patients were impaired compared with the control group on the Color‐Word card task at both test occasions. Thus, the depressed patients showed no improvement of effortful attention/executive performance as a function of symptom reduction. The results indicate that the depressed patients showed impaired cognitive performance on cognitive demanding tasks when symptomatic and that this impairment prevailed after 6 months, despite significant improvement in their depressive symptoms.     

Depressive cognition: a test of depressive realism versus negativity using general knowledge questions

This research is an examination of whether cognition in depressed individuals incorporates a realistic view of the world or a general tendency toward negativity. Participants provided two types of probability judgments of the likelihood that they correctly answered general knowledge questions: the probability that they correctly answered each of the individual questions and an aggregate judgment, after completing the questionnaire, of the percentage of all the questions they thought they had correctly answered. These tasks generally elicit overconfidence and accuracy in nondepressives. In accord with theories of both depressive realism and general negativity, in their item-by-item assessments of their answers to the individual questions, depressed participants demonstrated less overconfidence than nondepressed participants. In accord with the theory of general negativity but not with the theory of depressive realism, however, depressed participants demonstrated underconfidence in their aggregate judgments. The implications of these findings on theories of depressive cognition are discussed.     

Depressive Cognition: A Test of Depressive Realism Versus Negativity Using General Knowledge Questions

This research is an examination of whether cognition in depressed individuals incorporates a realistic view of the world or a general tendency toward negativity. Participants provided two types of probability judgments of the likelihood that they correctly answered general knowledge questions: the probability that they correctly answered each of the individual questions and an aggregate judgment, after completing the questionnaire, of the percentage of all the questions they thought they had correctly answered. These tasks generally elicit overconfidence and accuracy in nondepressives. In accord with theories of both depressive realism and general negativity, in their item-by-item assessments of their answers to the individual questions, depressed participants demonstrated less overconfidence than nondepressed participants. In accord with the theory of general negativity but not with the theory of depressive realism, however, depressed participants demonstrated underconfidence in their aggregate judgments. The implications of these findings on theories of depressive cognition are discussed.     

A randomized clinical trial of a brief, problem-focused couple therapy for depression

The aim of this study was to evaluate a brief couple therapy for depression targeted for mildly discordant or nondiscordant couples struggling with the negative impact of depression. Subjects included women with major depression or dysthymia who had husbands without clinical depression. Thirty-five couples were randomly assigned to the 5-week intervention (n = 18) or a waitlist control group (n = 17), and followed up 1 and 3 months later. Results showed a significant effect of treatment in reducing women's depressive symptoms, with 67% of women improved and 40% to 47% recovered at follow-up, compared to only 17% improved and 8% recovered among women in the control group. Treatment was also effective in secondarily improving women's marital satisfaction, reducing husbands' levels of psychological distress and depression-specific burden, and improving both partners' understanding and acceptance of depression. The treatment was implemented in five 2-hour sessions, representing an efficient, cost-effective approach. Findings support the growing utility of brief, problem-focused couple interventions that simultaneously target depression, relational functioning, and psychological distress experienced by the loved ones of depressed persons.     

Depressive realism and attributional style: implications for individuals at risk for depression

Prior research has found that depressed individuals are more realistic in their interpretations of certain events than nondepressed individuals. However, the implications of this finding for the etiology of depressive disorders have never been clarified. The current investigation sought to remedy this situation by exploring realism in the context of a well-validated, cognitive diathesis-stress theory of the etiology of a subtype of depression: hopelessness theory (Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Alloy, L. B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372). A sample of 239 college students, including groups of participants with depressogenic versus nondepressogenic attributional styles, recorded the causes they assigned to events; the extent to which their attributions were objectively realistic was evaluated. A comparison of the degree of objectivity was also made between dysphoric and nondysphoric individuals. Contrary to expectations derived from the depressive realism hypothesis, dysphoric individuals exhibited less realistic attributions as compared to nondysphoric individuals. Further, individuals at risk for depression evidenced a pessimistic bias, while individuals not at risk evidenced an optimistic bias.     

Biased attention and dysphoria: Manipulating selective attention reduces subsequent depressive symptoms

Selective attention for dysphoric stimuli has been observed in individuals with depression and those at risk for depression. To date, no studies have investigated the effects of directly manipulating selective attention for dysphoric stimuli on depressive symptoms. Mild to moderately depressed college students (N=34) were randomly assigned to complete 4 sessions of either attention training (AT) or no training (NT) during a two-week period. Participants completed self-reported assessments of depressive symptoms at baseline, post-training, and follow-up. Participants in the AT condition had a significantly greater decrease in depressive symptoms from baseline to follow-up than participants in the NT condition. This group difference was mediated by change in attention bias. Our findings suggest that biased attention may have a causal role in the maintenance of depressive symptoms.     

Cognitive appraisal and attributional correlates of depressive symptoms in children

This study examined differences in cognitive appraisal and causal attributions in response to a task among schoolchildren reporting high and low depressive symptomatology. From a sample of 361 fifth- and sixth- grade students, 72 children were classified as depressed or nondepressed on the basis of their scores on the Children's Depression Inventory. They were then presented with modified Picture Arrangement problems from the WISC- R and questioned about their performance. Pretask expectations, evaluations, and future expectations of performance for the self and that of same- aged peers were assessed, as well as causal explanations for solvable and unsolvable problems. Despite similar performance, the depressed group of children provided lower evaluations for themselves than for others on all three measures of self- appraisal, whereas the nondepressed group did not show this tendency. Further, the attribution results indicated that the two groups differed in their explanations for failure, with the depressed group emphasizing the importance of ability in failure and the nondepressed group emphasizing factors other than ability. Overall, the results provide support for the presence of negative cognitions and self- defeating attributional style among depressed relative to nondepressed children, as well as pointing to the importance of social comparison processes in depression.This research was supported by studentships to Nancy Meyer from the Manitoba Health Research Council and subsequentlv from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and by a grant to Dennis Dyck from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Councel of Canada. The research was done in partial fulfillment of the first author's master's degree in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.We would like to thank Rhea Brooks, April Machej, and Colleen Singbeil, for their assistance in the study; John Schallow, John Whitely, Lillian Esses, and Mike Thomas, for their helpful suggestions; and the teachers, administrators, and parents of Assiniboine South #3 School Division, for their cooperation and support.     

Self-schemas and risk for depression: a prospective study

The role of depressive self-schemas in vulnerability to depression was explored in a longitudinal design. Five groups of subjects hypothesized to be at differential risk for depression according to a schema model were identified: depressed schematic, depressed nonschematic, nondepressed schematic, nondepressed nonschematic, and a psychopathology control. They were followed regularly for 4 months with self-report and clinical interview measures of depression. There was no evidence of risk for depression associated with schema status apart from initial mood and no interaction of life stress events and schemas. In a second experiment with the same subjects, it was shown that depressive self-schemas do not exert an ongoing, active influence on everyday information processing; instead current mood affected information processing. Remitted depressed persons resembled nondepressed rather than depressed ones. The results support Kuiper and colleagues' distinction between concomitant and vulnerability schemas, and help to clarify differences between cognitions that are symptoms or correlates of depression and those that may play a causal role under certain conditions.     

Cognitive biases in three prediction tasks: A test of the cognitive model of depression

Cognitive therapy for depression is based on an assumption that depressed individuals have inaccurate, negative biases. Whether this assumption is accurate remains unresolved. Thus, this study sought to examine the relationship between depressive symptoms and bias in three sets of predictions (i.e., predictions of future life events, how one would be rated by a significant other, and performance on a vocabulary test). Following study announcements made to a subset of people pre-screened for depressive symptoms, 85 participants with widely varying depressive symptoms (17 of whom met diagnostic criteria for depression) made predictions on three judgment tasks and the outcomes for these tasks were assessed. Optimistic/pessimistic biases were related to depressive symptoms for each of the three tasks. Participants with high levels of depressive symptoms and depressed participants exhibited substantial pessimistic bias. Those high in depressive symptoms exhibited significant pessimistic bias on all three tasks. Participants meeting diagnostic criteria for depression exhibited pessimistic bias on two of three tasks. There was no evidence that depressive symptoms were associated with greater accuracy in judgments. Results are largely consistent with cognitive models of depression which postulate that depression is associated with pessimistic biases.     

Cognitive aspects of chronic depression

Previous research on chronic depression has focused on its link with other mood disorders and Axis II personality disorders. However, there are few data examining whether the cognitive perspective applies to this condition. In this cross-sectional study, 42 outpatients with chronic depression were compared with 27 outpatients with nonchronic major depressive disorder and 24 never psychiatrically ill controls on cognitive variables thought to be related to vulnerability to depression (e.g., dysfunctional attitudes, attributional style, a ruminative response style, and maladaptive core beliefs). Both depressed groups were more elevated than a never-ill comparison group. However, chronically depressed individuals were generally more elevated on measures of cognitive variables than those with major depressive disorders even after controlling for mood state and personality disorder symptoms.     

Testing the Effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression—Revised: Changes in Depression,Anxiety, Dysfunctional Attitudes,and Mindfulness

We tested the effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression-Revised (BATD-R), and its impact on secondary outcomes: anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. It was expected that individuals who completed BATD-R would exhibit decreased depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, as well as increased mindfulness. A sample of adults with depression (n?=?42) was recruited to complete the 10-week treatment. A healthy control group (n?=?38) was included for comparison. Outcomes (depression, anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness) were assessed at pre-treatment, post-treatment or 10 weeks for the healthy control group, and three-month follow-up. At pre-treatment, the clinical group reported greater depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and less mindfulness than the healthy control group. At post-treatment, the clinical group reported decreased depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and increased mindfulness, compared to pre-treatment. The control group did not exhibit changes across the 10 weeks. Clinical and healthy control group post-treatment scores did not differ. At three-month follow-up, the clinical group reported a slight increase in depressive symptoms from post-treatment, but still maintained lower depressive symptoms than pre-treatment. The clinical group maintained treatment gains in dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. Results support the effectiveness of BATD-R and suggest BATD-R may influence dysfunctional attitudes and mindfulness.

     

Cognitive,affective and social mechanisms in depression risk: Cognition,hostility, and coping style

Although some research has assessed cognitive variables in individuals at risk for depression, few studies have specifically assessed the role of automatic thinking, and virtually no studies have assessed anger and coping in this group. The current study compared measures of these variables in a high-risk group that was defined on the basis of a previous episode of depression, and a control group comprised of low-risk/never depressed individuals. Even though neither group evidenced depressive symptoms at the time of assessment, group comparisons and regression analyses indicated that high-risk individuals reported more negative automatic thoughts than did low-risk participants and that social support seeking, self-blame, and avoidance emerged as coping predictors of risk as did higher levels of anger and hostility. These data thus suggest patterns of interpersonal, behavioural, and cognitive variables that may characterise depression risk.     

Self-schemas,depression, and the processing of personal information in children

Recent research in information processing has yielded evidence supporting the self-as-schema model with adults. Further self-schema research with depressed and nondepressed persons has suggested the existence of negative self-schemas in depression, lending support to a content-specificity self-schema model. The present studies were designed to investigate the applicability of the self-as-schema model to children and to examine the extent of negative self-schemas in relatively depressed children. A depth-of-processing incidental recall memory paradigm was employed with two groups of normal third- to sixth-grade children. Results supported the self-as-schema model as applied to children, even the youngest group, by indicating superior recall for words encoded under self-reference instructions, compared to semantic or structural orienting instructions. The content-specificity hypotheses were tested with relatively depressed and nondepressed children, and were supported only for the nondepressed children, who recalled mostly positive content words. The relatively depressed children did not demonstrate content specificity in their recall, showing a more “confused” pattern, and the results were discussed in terms of a developmental model of acquisition of depression vulnerability requiring repeated depressive experiences over time. Although the results were consistent with a self-schema approach, current controversies over the implications of depth-of-processing methods require further research to clarify mechanisms of enhanced self-reference recall.     

Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Severe Mood Disorders in an Acute Psychiatric Naturalistic Setting: A Benchmarking Study

The current study examined the effectiveness of brief cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for severe mood disorders in an acute naturalistic setting. The sample included 951 individuals with either major depressive disorder (n = 857) or bipolar disorder with depressed mood (n = 94). Participants completed a battery of self-report measures assessing depression, overall well-being, and a range of secondary outcomes both before and after treatment. We found significant reductions in depressive symptoms, worry, self-harm, emotional lability, and substance abuse, as well as significant improvements in well-being and interpersonal relationships, post-treatment. Comparable to outpatient studies, 30% of the sample evidenced recovery from depression. Comparison of findings to benchmark studies indicated that, although the current sample started treatment with severe depressive symptoms and were in treatment for average of only 10 days, the overall magnitude of symptom improvement was similar to that of randomized controlled trials. Limitations of the study include a lack of control group, a limitation of most naturalistic studies. These findings indicate that interventions developed in controlled research settings on the efficacy of CBT can be transported to naturalistic, “real world” settings, and that brief CBT delivered in a partial hospital program is effective for many patients with severe depressive symptoms.     

Depressive realism and clinical depression

Depressive realism suggests that depressed individuals make more accurate judgments of control than their nondepressed counterparts. However, most studies demonstrating this phenomenon were conducted in nonclinical samples. In this study, psychiatric patients who met criteria for major depressive disorder underestimated control in a contingent situation and were consistently more negative in their judgments than were nondepressed controls. Depressed patients were less likely than their nondepressed counterparts to overestimate control in a noncontingent situation, but largely because they perceived receiving less reinforcement. Depressed patients were no more likely to use the appropriate logical heuristic to generate their judgments of control than their nondepressed counterparts and each appeared to rely on different primitive heuristics. Depressed patients were consistently more negative than their nondepressed counterparts and when they did appear to be more “accurate” in their judgments of control (as in the noncontingent situation) it was largely because they applied the wrong heuristic to less accurate information. These findings do not support the notion of depressive realism and suggest that depressed patients distort their judgments in a characteristically negative fashion.