Efficiency and automaticity of self-schema processing in clinical depressives

In this study, female clinical depressives and nondepressed control subjects made a series of self-referent personality judgments concerning depressed and nondepressed content personal adjectives. Employing rating times (RTs) for the personality decisions as a dependent measure, it was found that both clinical depressives and nondepressed psychiatric controls processed self-schema congruent content more efficiently (with quicker RTs), than incongruent content. To further test for the automaticity of self-schema processing, half the depressed and nondepressed adjectives were rated while subjects held six digits in memory (a concurrent memory load). Here it was found that the independent variable of memory load (zero vs. six digits) did not interact significantly with the remaining independent variables of groups (clinical depressives, psychiatric nondepressives, normal nondepressives), decision type (yes, no), and adjective content (depressed, nondepressed). The lack of any interactions involving the memory load factor provides initial evidence for self-schema processing as an automatic process, rather than as a process that demands attentional capacity.This research was supported, in part, by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship to Michael R. MacDonald.     

Vulnerability to depression,mild depression,and degree of self-schema consolidation

The present study investigated the degree of consolidation of self-schema content in mildly depressed individuals, individuals cognitively vulnerable to depression (but currently nondepressed), and nonvulnerable-nondepressed controls. All three groups of subjects were presented with pairs of adjectives involving one depressed and one nondepressed content adjective, and were asked to decide which of the two adjectives described them the best (or least). Following this, subjects rated each adjective on a 9-point degree of self-reference scale. On the basis of these two types of self-referent judgments, a measure of decision inconsistency was computed for each subject. In accord with predictions generated from a self-schema model of depression, similar decision inconsistency scores were found for mildly depressed and vulnerable-nondepressed individuals. In turn, both of these groups revealed greater decision inconsistencies than normal controls (the nonvulnerable-nondepressed group). Using the inconsistency measure as an index of the degree of consolidation of self-schema content, these findings suggest that relatively poor consolidation of depressed and nondepressed self-schema content may relate to both the etiology and maintenance of depression.     

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.     

State and trait differences in depressive self-perceptions.

A number of investigators have interpreted a tendency for depressed people to recall more negative than positive self-referent adjectives as evidence for a depressive self-schema made up of predominantly negative characterological information. We sought to confirm this account by eliciting the subjective self-perceptions of the depressed. Depressed patients and controls were required to rate whether or not a series of positive and negative adjectives applied to them during the previous week, at any time, and generally. The depressed distinguished clearly between these questions and, although describing themselves currently in largely negative terms, described their general state as equally composed of positive and negative elements.     

Judgment of contingency: cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects

In this research I investigated whether the use of relevant affective outcomes influences depressed and nondepressed subjects' judgment of contingency. Similar to previous studies (Alloy & Abramson, 1979, Experiments 1 and 2), Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed that when the outcome is affectively neutral (i.e., the onset of a light) depressed subjects make accurate judgments of contingency, whereas nondepressed subjects show (in noncontingent situations) a significant illusion of control. In Experiments 3 and 4 (a contingency situation and a noncontingency situation, respectively) different types of sentences (negative self-referent, negative other-referent, positive self-referent, positive other-referent) were used as outcomes. Although depressed subjects were more reluctant to show biased judgments than were the nondepressed subjects, in noncontingency situations depressed subjects made overestimated judgments of contingency when the outcomes were negative self-referent sentences. Results are discussed with regard to current cognitive theories of depression, particularly the learned helplessness model.     

State Self-Esteem as a Moderator of Negative Mood Effects on Person Impression

Participants in a negative or a neutral mood performed an impression formation task in Experiment 1, a word fragment completion task in Experiment 2, and both tasks in Experiment 3. A self-referent versus other-referent sentence completion task was used to induce a negative mood. As a result, participants exhibited fewer mood-congruent effects on impression rating in the self-referent than in the other-referent mood induction condition, even though relevant traits had been equally activated across the two conditions. It was also shown that the self-referent induction procedure was accompanied by degrading of self-esteem, whereas the other-referent one was not. Taken together, the results suggest that the state self-esteem might be relevant to moderating of the negative mood effects on person impression.     

Depression,self-focus,and social interaction

The accuracy of depressed and nondepressed subjects' perceptions of their own and a social interactional partner's performance was investigated. Twenty depressed and twenty nondepressed college students participated in dyadic interactions and then rated their own and their partner's social behavior. The interactions were also rated by objective coders. Depressed subjects were differentiated from nondepressed subjects on several measures by both the coders and the subjects. Depressed subjects' self-ratings were correlated with the coders' ratings more often than were the nondepressives' ratings, suggesting depressives provided more accurate self-observations. Contrary to prediction, depressives were also more accurate in judging their partner's behavior. Depressives experienced heightened levels of self-focused attention, but this attentional focus did not mediate the relationship between depression level and self-accuracy. Finally, an analysis of the verbal statements suggests that performance differences between depressives and nondepressives may be a function of the quantity, rather than the quality, of the verbal production.     

The nature of negative thoughts in depression

We investigated the nature and content of the negative thoughts that accompany depression by examining thoughts about oneself and others during three cognitive tasks: imaging, recall, and inference. Mildly depressed and nondepressed subjects were asked to image, recall, and make inferences about a variety of events while thinking about themselves or another person. The events were sad or happy and either social or nonsocial in nature. The results suggest that the negativity in thought that accompanies depression is restricted to thoughts about oneself and does not extend to thoughts about others. The relation between negative thoughts and the depressive's view of self is discussed. It is proposed that depressives have a negative self-schema that makes the affective nature of their behavior particularly salient.     

Self-attention,concept activation,and the causal self

Two experiments examined the relationship between the accessibility of selfreferent information and attributions of causal responsibility to the self. The first study introduced a priming technique, in which subjects used either first-person or third-person terms in a story construction task, to directly access self-referent or other-referent thought. It was found that self-attributions for hypothetical outcomes were greater for those subjects whose earlier stories were focused on the self. The second study, rather than activate self-referent cognition in a general fashion, sought to explicitly prime the notion of a “causal self.” In addition to self-referent or other-referent words, subjects were also given words that evoked notions of either causality or noncausality to be incorporated into their stories. Contingent activation of both “self” and “causal” notions subsequently resulted in greater self-attributions than any other experimental condition. Recall and recognition data from Experiment 2 were generally consistent with the contention that a specific and differentiated component of the self-schema had been accessed. The results of both studies, as well as the novel “self-priming” technique, are discussed in terms of self-awareness theory.     

Childhood depression and conduct disorder: I. Behavioral, affective, and cognitive aspects of family problem-solving interactions.

We assessed the family interactions of depressed, conduct-disordered, mixed depressed-conduct-disordered, and nonclinic children, ages 7-14 years, during a standardized family problem-solving discussion in the clinic. The child's and the mother's problem-solving proficiency, aversive behavior, and associated affective behavior (depressed and angry-hostile) were observed. The child and mother also rated each other's affect during the interaction for the dimensions sad, angry, critical, and happy on Likert-type scales. The child's and mother's cognitive constructions about the interaction were assessed using video-mediated recall. Although all clinic groups had lower levels of effective problem solving than did nonclinic children, their deficiencies were somewhat different. Mixed and depressed children displayed high levels of depressed affect and low levels of angry affect, whereas conduct-disordered children displayed both angry and depressed affect. In addition, conduct-disordered children had lower levels of positive problem solving and higher levels of aversive content than did non-conduct-disordered children. Depressed and conduct-disordered children had higher levels of self-referent negative cognitions than did mixed and comparison children, and depressed children also had higher other-referent negative cognitions than did all other groups. The study provides support for theories and treatment that stress the importance of family problem-solving and conflict resolution skills in child psychopathology.     

Memory for emotional stories in high and low depressed children

Cognitive theories of depression emphasise a vicious circle linking depressed mood and biased recall towards negative information. In line with this, depressed adults show selectively enhanced recall for negative information. This recall bias is held to be mediated by increased accessibility of negative self-referent schemas formed as a result of adverse early experiences. Given this, surprisingly few studies have examined depression-related recall biases from a developmental perspective. Clinically depressed children have been found to show enhanced recall of negative adjectives, particularly when self-referent, but to date there is no evidence for similar recall biases in non-clinically depressed groups. The current study addressed this by investigating high and low non-clinically depressed children's (aged 5-11 years) recall of emotional stories. High depressed children showed enhanced recall of negative stories, relative to positive stories, compared to the low depressed group. This did not vary with age group. We conclude that, when child-oriented materials are used, depression-related biases in recall towards negative information are observable even in a non-clinical sample of children from 5 years of age.     

Ego-involvement leads to positive self-schema activation and to a positivity bias in information processing

Study 1 examined the hypothesis that ego-involvement leads to positive self-schema activation. Ego-involvement was induced by having experimental subjects anticipate a difficult test of intelligence. Noninvolved control subjects did not anticipate the test. All subjects completed a depth-of-processing task, following which incidental recall was assessed. Ego-involved relative to noninvolved subjects tended to recall a greater number of positive and fewer negative words at both the self-referent and semantic processing levels. Study 2 was conducted to address further the self-schema hypothesis and to address the hypothesis suggested by the results of Study 1 that ego-involvement leads to a positivity bias in information processing. The design of Study 2 was similar to that of Study 1. Results revealed that the self-favorability of negative words recalled at the self-referent level was greater for ego-involved than for noninvolved subjects, suggesting positive self-schema activation. In addition, ego-involved subjects recalled a greater number of positive words at the semantic level, suggesting a positivity bias in information processing.Study 2 was conducted by Andrew Howell in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a Master of Arts degree at Concordia University, under the supervision of Michael Conway. The authors thank Karin Stiefenhofer for her work on the project. The research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche du Québec grants to Michael Conway.     

The self-reference effect: Methodological issues and implications from a schema-theoretical perspective

A number of investigators demonstrated that processing verbal stimuli by encoding them in reference to the self facilitates recall for these stimuli, compared with other kinds of semantic processing. On the basis of a critical discussion of the relevant research, it is hypothesized that the superiority of self-reference is due to some specific features of semantic orienting tasks that serve as control groups for self-referent encoding. This hypothesis is tested in three experiments demonstrating that, when changing certain features of these semantic orienting tasks, the self-reference-effect (SRE) is no longer obtained. In Experiment 3, the statistical difficulties are addressed that arise when not rejecting the null-hypothesis. Furthermore, several implications of schema-oriented explanations of the SRE are tested. Several dependent measures provide evidence in support of the motion that a self-schema is activated during encoding and retrieval of self-relevant material. However, results show that self-referent processing — in contrast to the most general claim of the relevant literature—does not lead to superior recollection.     

Forgotten but not gone: The recall and recognition of self-threatening memories

When people selectively forget feedback that threatens the self (mnemic neglect), are those memories permanently lost or potentially recoverable? In two experiments, participants processed feedback pertaining either to themselves or to another person. Feedback consisted of a mixture of positive and negative behaviors exemplifying traits that were both central and peripheral to participants’ self-definition. In Experiment 1, participants exhibited poorer recall for, but unimpaired recognition of, self-threatening feedback (i.e., negative, central, self-referent), relative to both self-affirming feedback (positive, central, self-referent) and other-relevant feedback (positive/negative, central, other-referent). In Experiment 2, participants who had experienced ego-deflation, but not ego-inflation, exhibited mnemic neglect for recall, but not for recognition. Both experiments imply that, even after being self-protectively neglected, self-threatening memories can still be retrieved.     

Characteristics for 200 words rated by young and older adults: Age-dependent evaluations of German adjectives (AGE)

We describe the Age-Dependent Evaluations of German Adjectives (AGE). This database contains ratings for 200 German adjectives by young and older adults (general word-rating study) and graduate students (self-other relevance study). Words were rated on emotion-relevant (valence, arousal, and control) and memory-relevant (imagery) characteristics. In addition, adjectives were evaluated for self-relevance (Does this attribute describe you?), age relevance (Is this attribute typical for young or for older adults?), and self-other relevance (Is this attribute more relevant for the possessor or for other persons?). These ratings are included in the AGE database as a resource tool for experiments on word material. Our comparisons of young and older adults’ evaluations revealed similarities but also significant mean-level differences for a large number of adjectives, especially on the valence dimension. This highlights the importance of age in the perception of emotional words. Data for all the words are archived at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Depression, self-focused attention, and expectancies for positive and negative future life events for self and others

In two studies, we examined depressed and nondepressed persons' judgments of the probability of future positive and negative life events occurring to themselves and to others. Study 1 demonstrated that depressed subjects were generally less optimistic than their nondepressed counterparts: Although nondepressed subjects rated positive events as more likely to happen to themselves than negative events, depressed subjects did not. In addition, relative to nondepressed subjects, depressed subjects rated positive events as less likely to occur to themselves and more likely to occur to others and negative events as more likely to occur to both self and others. Study 2 investigated the role that differential levels of self-focused attention might play in mediating these differences. On the basis of prior findings that depressed persons generally engage in higher levels of self-focus than nondepressed persons do and the notion that self-focus activates one's self-schema, we hypothesized that inducing depressed subjects to focus externally would attenuate their pessimistic tendencies. Data from Study 2 supported the hypothesis that high levels of self-focus partially mediate depressive pessimism: Whereas self-focused depressed subjects were more pessimistic than nondepressed subjects, externally focused depressed subjects were not. The role of attentional focus in maintaining these and other depressive pessimistic tendencies was discussed.