Depressed and nondepressed content self-reference in mild depressives

The present research investigated the extent to which mild depressives and normals differed in their self-referent processing of personal information. In Experiment 1, these subjects made two types of ratings on depressed (e.g., bleak, dismal) and nondepressed (e.g., loyal, organized) content personal adjectives. Half of the adjectives in each content category were rated for a semantic attribute (Does this word have a specific meaning or relate to a specific situation?), whereas half were rated for degree of self-reference (Does this word describe you?). These ratings were followed immediately by an incidental recall task, in which subjects recalled as many of the adjectives as possible. Consistent with predictions generated from a content-specific self-schema model, normals displayed superior recall for self-referenced nondepressed content adjectives, when compared to recall for self-referenced depressed content adjectives and recall for semantic ratings (both depressed and nondepressed content). In contrast, mild depressives exhibited enhanced self-referent recall for both types of content, when compared to their recall for semantic adjectives. This finding suggested that mild depressives utilize a self-schema which incorporates both depressed and nondepressed content. Experiment 2 explored this suggestion further by substituting an other-referent rating task (Does this word describe Pierre Trudeau?) for the semantic judgment used in Experiment 1. Again, consistent with a content-specific self-schema model, normals displayed superior recall only for self-referenced nondepressed adjectives. Mild depressives, however, showed enhanced self-referent recall, relative to other-referent recall, only for depressed content adjectives. For nondepressed content, mild depressives did not distinguish between the self- and other-referent conditions. This finding hinted that the nondepressed component of the mild depressives self-schema may operate at a somewhat reduced effectiveness, but only when required to differentiate between self and others.     

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.     

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.     

Future-event schemas and certainty about the future: automaticity in depressives' future-event predictions.

The proposition was tested that depressives make predictions about the future based on a pessimistic future-event schema. Participants varying in depression predicted whether positive and negative events would happen to them (or to an average person) in the future by pressing yes or no at a computer terminal as quickly as possible, either under a concurrent attentional load or under no such load. As hypothesized, depressives predicted more negative events and fewer positive events than did mild depressives or nondepressives and showed greater automaticity in their predictions. That is, the attentional load did not increase depressives' response latencies for either negative or positive events, even though it did so reliably for both mildly depressed and nondepressed individuals. Depressives may thus possess a highly developed future-event schema that operates efficiently in enabling future-event predictions.     

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.     

Depression and preference for self-focusing stimuli after success and failure

Depressed individuals, who tend to have large perceived-self/ideal-self discrepancies, have been shown to be particularly high in private self-consciousness. On the bases of this finding and of several converging theoretical perspectives, we hypothesized that depressives, unlike nondepressives, do not find self-focus more aversive after failure than after success, and thus either (a) show no differential preference for self-focusing stimuli after success versus after failure (weak hypothesis), or (b) prefer self-focusing stimuli after failure over self-focusing stimuli after success (strong hypothesis). Depressed and nondepressed college students succeeded or failed on a supposed test of verbal intelligence, and then worked on two sets of puzzles, one in the presence and one in the absence of a self-focusing stimulus (mirror). Whereas nondepressed subjects liked the mirror-associated puzzle more after success than after failure, depressed subjects did not; depressed subjects tended to like the mirror-associated puzzle more after failure than after success. Nondepressed subjects also exhibited a self-serving pattern of attributions, viewing the test as less valid and luck as more responsible for their performance after failure than after success; depressed subjects showed no such differences. In consistency with their failure to use defensive strategies, depressed subjects showed a decrease in self-esteem after failure; nondepressed subjects showed no such change.     

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.     

Depression and causal attributions for success and failure

The present study investigated the effects of depression on causal attributions for success and failure. Specifically, female university students were separated into depressed and nondepressed groups on the basis of Costello--Comrey Depression Scale scores, and then received either 20%, 55%, or 80% reinforcement on a word association task. Following the task, attributions were made for outcome using the four factors of effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. In accord with predictions generated from a self-serving biases hypothesis, nondepressives made internal (ability, effort) attributions for a successful outcome (80% reinforcement) and external attributions (luck, task difficulty) for a failure outcome (20% reinforcement). As predicted from consideration of the self-blame component of depression, the attributions made by depressives for a failure outcome were personal or internal. Contrary to expectations, depressives also made internal attributions for a successful outcome. The findings for depressives were discussed in relation to the recently revised learned helplessness model of depression, which incorporates causal attributions. For nondepressives, the findings were considered in terms of the self-serving biases hypothesis.     

Allure of negative feedback: self-verification strivings among depressed persons.

We propose that people with negative self-views are rejected because they gravitate to partners who view them unfavorably. In relation to nondepressed college students (n = 28), depressives (n = 13) preferred interaction partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 1). Similarly, in relation to nondepressives (n = 106), depressives (n = 10) preferred friends or dating partners who evaluated them unfavorably (Study 2). Dysphorics (n = 6) were more inclined to seek unfavorable feedback from their roommates than were nondepressives (n = 16); feedback-seeking activities of dysphorics were also associated with later rejection (Study 3). Finally, people with negative self-views (n = 37) preferentially solicited unfavorable feedback, although receiving such feedback made them unhappy, in comparison with people with positive self-views (n = 42; Study 4). It seems a desire for self-verification compels people with negative self-views to seek unfavorable appraisals.     

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.     

Depression and pessimism for the future: biased use of statistically relevant information in predictions for self versus others

The cognitive theories of depression emphasize the role of pessimism about the future in the etiology and maintenance of depression. The present research was designed for two reasons: to provide a clear demonstration that depressed individuals' predictions of the likelihood of future outcomes are more pessimistic than those of nondepressed individuals given identical information with which to make forecasts and identical conditions for forecasting, and to test two additional hypotheses regarding possible mechanisms underlying depressives' relative pessimism in forecasting: a social-comparison and a differential attributional-style hypothesis. We used a modification of the cue-use paradigm developed by Ajzen (1977, Experiment 1) and examined depressed and nondepressed people's predictions of the likelihood of future positive and negative outcomes for themselves and for others. The results provided strong support for pessimism on the part of depressed individuals relative to nondepressed individuals in forecasts for both self and others. In addition, whereas nondepressives exhibited a self-enhancing bias in which they overestimated their probability of success and underestimated their probability of failure relative to that of similar others, depressives did not succumb to either positive or negative social comparison biases in prediction. Finally, in line with the attributional-style hypothesis, depressed-nondepressed differences in subjects' cue-use patterns were obtained, especially in forecasts for self. The findings are discussed with respect to the mechanisms underlying predictive optimism and pessimism and the possible functions and implications of these predictive biases.     

Effects of Level of Processing on Implicit and Explicit Memory in Depressed Mood

Recently, several studies have addressed the question of whether depression affects priming in implicit memory tasks. The main aim of this experiment was to assess the presence of a bias for negative information in explicit memory (free recall) and implicit memory (word-stem completion) tasks among subclinically depressed subjects compared to nondepressed subjects, using the typical levels of processing manipulation. The results of this study show the existence of a mood-congruent memory bias for both implicit and explicit memory in depressed subjects. The theoretical implications of these findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with depressed mood are discussed.     

Differences in automatic social information processing between nondepressed and subclinically depressed individuals

The present research examined individual differences in automatic social information processing. We hypothesized that because nondepressed and subclinically depressed persons have different interpersonal experiences, they may process social information in different ways. In this experiment, participants were asked to make judgments about social relationships after being reminded of a target person. They had to make these judgments under either a light or a heavy memory load. Results showed that when nondepressed participants were reminded of people with whom they had frequent pleasant interactions, they made a greater number of positive judgments about their social relationships than did subclinically depressed participants. When subclinically depressed participants were reminded of people with whom they had had frequent unpleasant interactions, they made a greater number of negative judgments about their social relationships than did their nondepressed counterparts. Moreover, performance in these experimental conditions was unaffected by memory load, suggesting that automatic thoughts about their social relationships had been evoked.     

Maternal depression and child adjustment: a longitudinal analysis

This study examined the relation between maternal depression and child adjustment. Two major issues were addressed. First, to assess the specificity to depression of observed child adjustment difficulties, four groups of female subjects were included: clinically depressed psychiatric patients, nondepressed psychiatric patients, nondepressed medical patients, and nondepressed nonpatients. Second, to assess the stability of the observed effects, data were collected early in the patients' treatment and again approximately 8 weeks later. The results indicated that the depressed mothers described their children as having various behavior problems; interestingly, interviewers also rated these children as demonstrating disturbed behavior. Although the offspring of the depressed mothers were the most impaired children in the sample, the lack of significant differences between children of the depressed and the nondepressed psychiatric patients suggests that child adjustment is more strongly related to the presence of maternal psychopathology than it is to diagnostic status. Finally, children of the psychiatric patients continued to demonstrate problems at the second assessment. Implications of these results for models of depression are discussed, and directions for future research are offered.     

Interpersonal betrayal and cooperation: effects on self-evaluation in depression

Despite numerous studies demonstrating that depressed people are generally self-critical, little is known about interpersonal stressors that may activate or increase this negative self-evaluation. In this study, the effect of interpersonal betrayal and cooperative social interaction on self-evaluation processes in depressed and nondepressed women was assessed. Depressed subjects who experienced interpersonal betrayal were more critical of their performance on a subsequent task than were nondepressed subjects or depressed subjects who had experienced a cooperative interaction. Depressed subjects in the betrayal condition also behaved more aggressively toward their betraying partner than did nondepressed betrayed subjects. Depressed subjects were more critical of their own personality characteristics than were nondepressed subjects, regardless of condition. Results suggest that some negative cognitive schema among depressed persons may be altered by interpersonal factors, although it is not clear whether such effects are secondary to increases in self-criticism after conflict or to decreases in self-critical tendencies after positive interaction. Given the variability in results with different measures of self-evaluation, researchers are urged to use multiple, diverse measures of self-evaluation in future efforts to study variability in self-appraisal.