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.     

Processing of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and nondepressed college students: schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism

Explored schematic processing as a mechanism for predicting (a) when depressed Ss would be negative relative to nondepressed Ss and (b) when depressed and nondepressed Ss would show biased or unbiased (i.e., "realistic") processing. Depressed and nondepressed Ss performed multiple trials of a task under conditions in which the two groups held either equivalent or different schemas regarding this task. Ss received either an unambiguous or objectively normed ambiguous feedback cue on each trial. In full support of schematic processing, depressed Ss showed negative encoding relative to nondepressed Ss only when their schemas were more negative, and both depressed and nondepressed Ss showed positively biased, negatively biased, and unbiased encoding depending on the relative feedback cue-to-schema match. Depressed and nondepressed Ss' response latencies to unambiguous feedback also supported the occurrence of schematic processing. We discuss the methodological, treatment, and "realism" implications of these findings and suggest a more precise formulation of Beck's schema theory of depression.     

Depression and interpersonal attraction: the role of perceived similarity

We hypothesized that depressed individuals are generally viewed as dissimilar and that this perceived dissimilarity contributes to negative reactions to the depressed. In addition, we hypothesized that if perceived similarity affects liking of depressed individuals, then nondepressed subjects should prefer nondepressed targets, but depressed subjects should not share this preference. To test these hypotheses, depressed and nondepressed subjects received information about two targets, both either depressed or nondepressed, one attitudinally dissimilar and one attitudinally similar. They were then asked to fill out an attraction measure and an interest in meeting measure for each target. The results clearly supported the primary hypotheses, demonstrating that nondepressed subjects preferred nondepressed targets and perceived them as more similar than depressed targets, and that this preference for nondepressed targets is not shared by depressed subjects. Tests of supplementary hypotheses also confirmed that depressed subjects perceive their best friends as being more depressed and more dissimilar than do nondepressed subjects. The implications of these findings for the social world of the depressed were discussed.     

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.     

Schematic and situational determinants of depressed and nondepressed students' interpretation of feedback

We examined whether depressed persons' social skill deficits contribute to their negative cognitions and whether this contribution is independent of their negative schemata. Depressed (n = 60) and nondepressed (n = 60) subjects engaged in group discussions. We assessed subjects' social competence schemata with a questionnaire and subjects' actual level of social competence in the discussion through objective ratings made by codiscussants and outside observers. We found that independently of their negative schemata, depressed subjects' social skill deficits explained a significant portion of the variance in their more negative interpretation of feedback (relative to nondepressed subjects'). This suggests that real deficits in depressed persons' performance compound the effects of their negative schemata and further contribute to their negative cognitions. We also further explored findings by Dykman et al. (1989) and Lewinsohn et al. (1980).     

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.     

Maternal depression and its relationship to life stress,perceptions of child behavior problems,parenting behaviors,and child conduct problems

This study examined the relationship of reported maternal depression to prior and current life stressors, and to mother perceptions of child adjustment, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Forty-six depressed mothers and 49 nondepressed mothers and their clinic-referred children (aged 3-8 years) participated. Depressed mothers were more critical than nondepressed mothers, but the behavior of children of depressed and nondepressed mothers showed no significant differences. Depressed mothers were more likely to have experience child abuse, spouse abuse, or more negative life events than nondepressed mothers. Maternal reports of stress related to mother characteristics and to negative life events were the most potent variables discriminating depressed from nondepressed mother families.     

Contingency judgments by depressed college students: sadder but not always wiser

We examined depressed and nondepressed college students' perceptions of control over outcomes in a task similar to the one introduced by Alloy and Abramson (1979, Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, when subjects completed a contingency learning task with no one else present, nondepressed subjects perceived themselves to have more control over frequently occurring response-independent outcomes than did depressed subjects, which replicated Alloy and Abramson's finding. When subjects completed the task in the presence of an observer, depressed students perceived themselves to have more control than did nondepressed students. In Experiment 2, the observer effects found in Experiment 1 were replicated, and we extended those results by showing that when response-independent outcomes occurred relatively infrequently, depressed and nondepressed subjects who completed the task in the presence of an observer did not reliably differ in their estimates of personal control. In Experiment 3, which included minor procedural variations from the other experiments, the pattern of results found in Experiments 1 and 2 was replicated under conditions in which observers were present while subjects received frequently occurring outcomes. Together, the results of the three experiments demonstrate that the consistently accurate personal control estimates of depressed subjects that have been found across a variety of situations break down when subjects complete a contingency learning task in the presence of an observer, and outcomes occur independently of response at a high frequency.     

The Impact of Depression on Self–Other Discrepancies in Decision Making

Although there is a small but growing body of literature on how people make risky decisions for others and predict others' decisions, results seem to be contradictory. The authors contribute to the understanding of these mixed results by investigating how depression affects self–other discrepancies in decision making and the psychological processes that underlie these discrepancies. In an experiment, depressed and nondepressed individuals read a series of scenarios involving decisions about health, money, and interpersonal relationships. They then indicated which of two options they would choose for themselves or for another person, or predicted which option this person would choose for himself or herself. Finally, participants reported benefits and drawbacks of the decisions (i.e., cognitions) and feelings about risk. Depressed individuals were less prone to bias when they predicted others' decisions than nondepressed individuals. Feelings about risk played a key role in determining the direction and the magnitude of this bias. In contrast, both depressed and nondepressed individuals showed bias when they made decisions for others. This bias affected their decisions in opposing ways and was determined by cognitions. This bias is consistent with literature showing that depression is associated with an increased sensitivity to social risks. The authors provide a theoretical explanation of self–other discrepancies in decision making in depressed and nondepressed individuals and conclude that the results support the assumption that depression is associated with psychological processes whose role is to increase sensitivity to social threats rather than with a more general negative bias in cognitive functioning. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Affective valence and memory in depression: dissociation of recall and fragment completion.

Depressed (n = 16) and nondepressed (n = 16) subjects' memory for affectively valenced words was assessed by an explicit test (free recall) and an implicit test (word fragment completion). Under free-recall instructions, depressed subjects recalled significantly more negatively valenced than positively valenced words, whereas the opposite pattern was observed in nondepressed control subjects. These results replicate those previously reported in the literature. The differential effect of word valence was absent, however, when memory was tested implicitly: Depressed and nondepressed subjects exhibited equivalent priming of positive and negative words. These data are discussed in terms of Williams, Watts, MacLeod, and Mathews's (1988) model of depression.     

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.     

Schema congruence and depression: loss of objectivity in self- and other-inferences

Depressed and nondepressed students judged the plausibility of positive and negative inferences ostensibly made either by themselves or by others. Negative self-inferences were judged by depressed students as more plausible, and positive other-inferences as less plausible. The results were in accord with Beck's (1967) theory of schema-based distortion in depression, which proposes that persons vulnerable to the development of depression are prone to make erroneous negative inferences and to then regard those inferences as plausible and correct. The results also suggested that depressed persons responded differentially depending on whether they were instructed to consider the inferences as their own or another's, whereas nondepressed persons did not.     

Depression, realism, and the overconfidence effect: are the sadder wiser when predicting future actions and events?

Do depressed individuals make more realistic judgments than their nondepressed peers in real world settings? Depressed and nondepressed Ss in 2 studies were asked to make predictions about future actions and outcomes that might occur in their personal academic and social worlds. Both groups of Ss displayed overconfidence, that is, they overestimated the likelihood that their predictions would prove to be accurate. Of key importance, depressed Ss were less accurate in their predictions, and thus more overconfident, than their nondepressed counterparts. These differences arose because depressed Ss (a) were more likely to predict the occurrence of low base-rate events and (b) were less likely to be correct when they made optimistic predictions (i.e., stated that positive events would occur or that aversive outcomes would not). Discussion focuses on implications of these findings for the depressive realism hypothesis.     

Depressive self-presentation: beyond self-handicapping

An experiment was conducted to examine the notion that depressives' responses would reflect a protective self-presentation style (Hill, Weary, & Williams, 1986), the underlying goal of which would be the avoidance of future performance demands and potential losses in self-esteem. In this study, depressed and nondepressed Ss were asked to perform a relatively simple visual-motor task. Half of the depressed and half of the nondepressed Ss were told that if they were successful at the task, they would be asked to perform a 2nd, similar task. The remaining Ss were given no such expectation of future performance. We predicted and found that depressed compared with nondepressed Ss strategically failed at the task when presented with the possibility of future performance and further losses in esteem. Moreover, this strategic failure was associated with some costs; depressed-future performance expectancy Ss experienced more discomfort or negative affect as a result of their performance. The relationship between this depressive self-presentation and self-handicapping strategies is discussed.     

Maternal depression: Effects on social cognition and behavior in parent-child interactions

The social interactions of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their preschool-age children were observed and mothers' perceptions of child behavior assessed. Depressed mothers, as a group, exhibited more negative behavior than controls; however, no differences were found for maternal positive behavior or contingent responding. There was a high degree of reciprocity between child and mother behavior in both groups and there was a trend for children of the depressed mothers to be more negative than the control children. The results with cognitive measures were consistent with depressive realism in perception of social interactions: Depressed mothers recalled more negative child behavior than nondepressed mothers; however, these perceptions paralleled the observed interactions. Overall, the results suggest that maternal depression is associated with negative parent-child interactions and more negative, albeit fairly accurate, perceptions of child behavior.This study is based on portions of a doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iowa. I appreciate the guidance of my advisors Michael O'Hara and Donald K. Routh and committee members Leonard Feldt, John Knutson, and Sue Rosner.     

Depressed fathers' stereotyping of infants labeled “depressed”

This study investigated whether depressed and nondepressed fathers stereotyped infants labeled “depressed” and how they viewed their own infants. Twenty-five fathers (12 nondepressed, 13 depressed) of 4-month old infants rated their infants' psychological, social and physical attributes on the Infant Stereotyping Scale (ISS). They then rated videotaped infants, labeled “normal” or “depressed”, on the ISS. Fathers rated depressed versus normal infants lower on sociability, social behavior, and cognitive competence. Depressed versus nondepressed fathers, rated depressed infants lower on social behavior, potency, and sociability. Depressed fathers rated their own infants lower on social behavior, potency, and cognitive competence as well as being more vulnerable. Implications of parental depression on stereotyping effects and possible risks for infants are discussed. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Depression and marital functioning: an examination of specificity and gender differences

Recent work has emphasized the importance of assessing the marital relationships of depressed persons. The present study was designed to examine the specificity to clinical depression of problematic marital functioning and to assess potential gender differences in the marital relationships and spousal interactions of depressed persons. Depressed psychiatric patients, nondepressed medical patients, and nondepressed community control subjects and their spouses completed measures of marital satisfaction and then participated in a 20-min marital interaction task. Subjects then completed measures assessing their postinteraction mood and perceptions of their spouses, and the interactions were scored with respect to the frequency of occurrence of a number of behaviors. The depressed couples differed from the community controls on virtually every measure of marital functioning. Furthermore, although the medical patients and their spouses also reported marital dissatisfaction and exhibited dysfunctional interactional behavior, only the depressed couples were characterized by negative affect following the interactions and by negative appraisals of their spouses' behaviors. This negative affect was particularly pronounced for the depressed women. Implications of these results are discussed and directions for further research are offered.     

Specifying the Nature of Social Skill Deficits Associated With Depression

According to the social skill deficit theory of depression, people who lack social skills are unable to obtain positive social reinforcement and thus become depressed. However, past research is replete with mixed findings on the social skill-depression relationship. The present research was designed to overcome two prominent shortcomings in this research: poor operationalizations of social skill and constraining experimental procedures. In Study 1, 67 depressed and 74 nondepressed subjects engaged in an unstructured interaction with knowledge that they were being videotaped. In Study 2, 40 depressed and 61 nondepressed subjects were surreptitiously videotaped as they waited with another student for a study to begin. Analyses of subjects' social skill in these interactions indicated that depression is associated with a partial social skill deficit, most notable in terms of excessive social anxiety, low motivation to communicate with others, low social expressivity, and diminished behavioral involvement in Study 2. Partners of depressed subjects also showed low behavioral involvement in Study 2. However, on some aspects of social skill, depressed subjects appeared no different from their nondepressed peers. Depressed subjects' social skill was most deficient when they were given no instruction to interact and had no knowledge that they were being recorded.