Depression versus anxiety: Processing of self- and other-referent information

Abstract

Depression and anxiety are psychopathological states that have been closely related in clinical. empirical. and theoretical investigations. Cognitive approaches to the emotional disorders suggest that depressed and anxious individuals can be differentiated on the basis of the specific content of their self-referent judgements and information processing. The present investigation provided a stringent test of the content-specificity hypothesis by iomparing depressed. anxious. and nondepressed-nonanxious subjects' processing of positive and negative depression-relevant, anxiety-relevant. and control content adjectives for themselves and a well-known other (their best friends). Based on judgement and reaction time measures. the content-specificity hypothesis was supported. Depressed subjects were unique in exhibiting balanced endorsements and processing of positive and negative traits. suggesting that they possessed self-schematil with mixed positive and negative content. In contrast. anxious subjects were unique in ascribing more negative than positive anxiety-relevant traits to themselves and in processing negative anxiety-relevant traits fitstcr than depression-relevant traits. In addition. depressed and anxious subjects' self-referent processing was specific to the self: both groups' judgements were more negative for themselves than for their best friends. The findings are discussed with regard to their implications for cognitive differences between depression and anxiety and the specificity of the “depressive evenhandedness” effect.