Confirmatory bias in hypothesis testing for client-identified and counselor self-generated hypotheses.

Assessed hypothesis testing strategies exhibited by 65 counseling trainees after the trainees viewed and responded to a videotaped client–counselor interaction. Participants' hypothesis testing strategies were assessed both for a client-identified (experimenter-provided) and a counselor self-generated hypothesis about the client's problem. Results for the client-identified hypotheses failed to support either the previous finding of a strong neutral hypothesis testing strategy (e.g., D. C. Hayden, 1987; D. C. Strohmer and A. L. Chiodo, 1984) or the predicted confirmatory bias. Results for the self-generated hypotheses did reveal a strong comfirmatory tendency across 5 analog interviewing behaviors—with mean response percentages of 64% confirmatory, 21% neutral, and 15% disconfirmatory—and contradict prior research indicating that counselors do not exhibit a confirmatory bias in hypothesis testing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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: (a) 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 (b) 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counselor hypothesis testing strategies: The role of initial impressions and self-schema.

Tested, in 2 experiments, the robustness of the findings of the 1st author and L. A. Newman (see record 1984-04824-001) concerning the lack of confirmatory bias in the way that counselors collect data to test their hypothesis. In Exp I, 40 counselors (aged 25–55 yrs) were asked to develop their own clinical hypothesis to determine whether investment or involvement in the hypothesis may influence counselors to be biased in the questions they ask. In Exp II, 40 counseling students (aged 22–54 yrs) were given a hypothesis to test that was consistent with their self-schema to determine whether bias toward confirmation occurs when the counselor is testing a hypothesis that is also an important part of their own self-concept. Confirmatory bias in hypothesis testing was not supported in either experiment. Results support the position that the bias toward constructing confirmatory questioning strategies reported in social judgment literature may be more a function of the methodology used than of a strong tendency for individuals to be confirmatory. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A clinically grounded evaluation of attributional theories of depression and psychotherapy.

Discusses the attributional theory of depression and, using clinical data as evidence, argues that identifying the content of an attribution is not sufficient to understand depression. It is suggested that attributional theories were developed outside the clinical context (i.e., working directly with depressed individuals) and therefore do not address the issue of personal meaning. A major goal of psychotherapy is the derivation of personal meaning (C. Rogers, 1947; W. Snyder, 1949) and must be associated with attributions for a fuller understanding of depression. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diagnostic and confirmation strategies in trait hypothesis testing.

The role of diagnostic and confirmation strategies in trait hypothesis testing is examined. The present studies integrate theoretical and empirical work on qualitative differences among traits with the hypothesis-testing literature. Ss tested trait hypotheses from 2 hierarchically restrictive trait dimensions: introversion–extraversion and honesty–dishonesty. In Study 1, Ss generated questions to test trait hypotheses, and diagnosticity was theoretically defined (e.g., questions associated with nonrestrictive ends of trait dimensions). In Study 2, Ss selected questions from an experimenter-provided list in which diagnosticity was empirically defined. In Study 3, Ss chose between 2 equally diagnostic questions. In each of the studies, Ss showed a primary preference for diagnostic information and a secondary preference for confirmatory information. Ss' preference for diagnostic information suggests that they prefer to ask the most informative questions. The explanation for the confirmation bias is less obvious, and possible reasons for this effect are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information processing strategies in counselor hypothesis testing: The role of selective memory and expectancy.

The issue of confirmatory bias in counselors' clinical hypothesis testing was explored. Previous research has suggested that counselors are unbiased when constructing questioning strategies to test a client hypothesis. This study proceeded on the assumption that questioning is only the beginning of the hypothesis-testing process. In 2 experiments, the way counselors remembered information about a client was examined, and information from a client narrative was selected. In Exp 1, experienced counselors remembered more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. In Exp 2, counselors in training selected more confirmatory than disconfirmatory information, even when the report they reviewed contained more disconfirmatory information. Conclusions of the study were the following: Counselors need to be aware of these biases, and counselor education should explicitly train counselors to avoid them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicidality and cognitive vulnerability to depression among college students: a prospective study

Using a behavioral high-risk two-site prospective design, we tested the cognitive vulnerability hypotheses about suicidality. Consistent with prediction, the high cognitive risk (HR) participants were more likely than the low cognitive risk (LR) participants to exhibit suicidality, measured by both structured diagnostic interview and questionnaire self-report, during the 2 1/2 year prospective follow-up period. Moreover, when the prospective period was examined as a whole, the mediation hypothesis derived from the cognitive theories was strongly supported. Hopelessness appeared to mediate the obtained relationship between cognitive vulnerability and suicidality. Finally, the obtained relationship between cognitive vulnerability and suicidality was not mediated by other hypothesized risk factors for suicidality not specified in the cognitive theories, such as past suicidality, personal history of depressive disorders, borderline and antisocial personality dysfunction, and parental history of depression.     

Depressive information processing among nonclinic, nonreferred college students.

A. T. Beck's (1972, 1974) cognitive theory of depression provided the conceptual framework for examining the depressive information processing of nonclinic, nonreferred college students. Specifically, the students' processing of personal information, as assessed by both the self-referent incidental recall and the personal hypothesis testing tasks, was examined as a function of their current states of depressive symptomatology, as well as cognitive vulnerability to depression. The results of canonical correlation analyses revealed that the students' experience of greater levels of depressive symptomatology was significantly related to their negative processing of personal information, in support of Beck's theory. The students' cognitive vulnerability status was found to have less of an effect on their personal information processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress and memory bias interact to predict depression in multiple sclerosis.

This study is an investigation of the moderating effect of cognitive schema on the relationship between stress and depression in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). In the study, the authors employed a performance-based measure of affective memory bias and a self-report measure of everyday stress to assess both direct and interactive effects of cognitive schema and stress on depression in individuals with MS. The specific hypotheses were that high stress would be more highly associated with depression if an individual also demonstrated a bias for negative information, but that a bias for positive information may buffer against the effects of stress on depression. Results supported the hypotheses, demonstrating a significant effect of the interaction and differential effects of stress based on the direction of memory bias. Implications for understanding depression in MS are discussed, as well as dominant theories of adult depression in the general population. The results are also discussed as a potential contradiction to A. T. Beck's (1967, 1976) developmental hypothesis of cognitive schemas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions and expectations: A confluence of vulnerabilities in mild depression in a college student population.

The reformulated model of learned helplessness assumes that attributional style has its impact on depression in part through the intermediary effect of pessimistic or negative expectations about the occurrence of future outcomes. A possible logical next step in testing the model is to measure jointly attributions and expectations and to examine their combined (interactive) contributions. We used a short-term longitudinal design to examine whether attributional style works in combination with other factors, such as expectations, to predispose individuals to depression. Consistent with the initial theoretical analysis, the interaction of attributional style and expectations predicted depression on the Beck Depression Inventory 6 weeks later. We also found that attributional style predicted depression 6 weeks later in interaction with initial level of depression. These findings support our confluence hypothesis, which assumes that vulnerability factors can combine interactively and qualify the effects of attributional style. These interaction-effect findings have implications for currently popular cognitive theories of depression and for previous research on vulnerability to depression that has examined only the effects of single cognitive variables (such as attributional style) considered alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does affect induce self-focused attention?

Despite growing evidence that depression is linked with self-focused attention, little is known about how depressed individuals become self-focused or, more generally, about what arouses self-focus in everyday life. Two experiments examined the hypothesis that affect itself induces self-focused attention. In Experiment 1, moods were manipulated with an imagination mood-induction procedure. Sad-induction Ss became higher in self-focus than did neutral-induction Ss. Experiment 2 replicated this effect for sad moods by means of a musical mood-induction procedure and different measures of self-focus. However, Experiment 2 failed to support the hypothesis that happy moods induce self-focus. The results have implications for mood-induction research, self-focused attention, and recent models of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A prospective study of stress autonomy versus stress sensitization in adolescents at varied risk for depression.

This longitudinal study investigated the stress autonomy, stress sensitization, and depression vulnerability hypotheses in adolescents across 6 years (i.e., Grades 6 through 12). Participants were 240 children (Time 1 mean age = 11.86, SD = 0.57) who varied in risk for depression on the basis of their mother's history of mood disorders. All analyses were conducted as multilevel models to account for nesting in the data. Results were consistent with the stress sensitization hypothesis. The within-subject relation of stress levels to depressive symptoms strengthened with increasing numbers of prior depressive episodes. In addition, evidence consistent with the vulnerability hypothesis was found. The relation of stress levels to depressive symptoms was stronger for adolescents who were at risk for depression on the basis of maternal depression history and for those who had experienced more depressive episodes through Grade 12. These findings suggest that onsets of depression in adolescents may be predicted by both relatively stable and dynamic transactions between stressful life events and vulnerabilities such as maternal depression and youths' own history of depressive episodes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal investigation of information processing and cognitive organization in clinical depression: Stability of schematic interconnectedness.

This study longitudinally investigated information processing and cognitive organization in clinical depression. The main hypothesis was that individuals whose depression had remitted would show a significant cognitive shift on information processing (e.g., deactivation of negative processing) but not on cognitive organizational tasks. Forty-five individuals with clinical depression completed 2 information processing and 2 cognitive organizational tasks at initial assessment. At 6-month follow-up, the sample (23 remitted, 22 stable depressed) was readministered the tasks. As expected, information processing shifted significantly in individuals who had improved symptomatically, whereas negative cognitive organizational indices remained stable. The implications of these results are discussed as they pertain to the cognitive vulnerability, maintenance, treatment, and recurrence of depression. Directions for future research are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, self-focused attention, and the negative memory bias.

On the basis of self-regulatory perseveration theory, we hypothesized that the negative memory bias commonly found among depressed people is mediated by excess levels of self-focused attention and thus can be reduced by preventing depressed people from focusing on themselves. In Experiment 1, nondepressed and subclinically depressed college students were induced to either focus on themselves or externally and then to recall 10 events that had happened to themselves during the previous 2 weeks. Consistent with our hypotheses, events recalled by depressed Ss were more negative than events recalled by nondepressed Ss under conditions of self-focus but not under conditions of external focus. We conducted Experiment 2 to determine whether this effect was specific to self-referent events or generalizable to events that happened to other people. Experiment 2's findings replicated the previous findings for self-referent events but showed a different pattern for recall of events that happened to others, suggesting that self-focus reduces the negative memory bias among depressed individuals by deactivating their self-schemas. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

If you say thee uh you are describing something hard: The on-line attribution of disfluency during reference comprehension.

Eye-tracking and gating experiments examined reference comprehension with fluent (Click on the red. . .) and disfluent (Click on [pause] thee uh red . . .) instructions while listeners viewed displays with 2 familiar (e.g., ice cream cones) and 2 unfamiliar objects (e.g., squiggly shapes). Disfluent instructions made unfamiliar objects more expected, which influenced listeners' on-line hypotheses from the onset of the color word. The unfamiliarity bias was sharply reduced by instructions that the speaker had object agnosia, and thus difficulty naming familiar objects (Experiment 2), but was not affected by intermittent sources of speaker distraction (beeps and construction noises; Experiments 3). The authors conclude that listeners can make situation-specific inferences about likely sources of disfluency, but there are some limitations to these attributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collective induction: Effects of multiple hypotheses and multiple evidence in two problem domains.

This article proposes that collective induction is improved more by multiple evidence than by multiple hypotheses. In Experiment 1, 4-person cooperative groups solved rule induction problems. In 9 conditions, they proposed 1, 2, or 4 hypotheses and selected evidence on 1, 2, or 4 arrays, on each trial. Correct hypotheses increased with multiple evidence but not with multiple hypotheses. Conversely, nonplausible hypotheses increased with multiple hypotheses but not with multiple evidence. In Experiment 2, 4-person cooperative groups solved a random mapping of the letters A–J to the numbers 0–9. On each trial, they proposed 2 or 2 equations in letters (e.g., A?+?D?≠??), learned the answer in letters (e.g., A?+?D?=?G), and proposed 1 or 2 hypotheses (e.g., A?=?5). Performance was improved by multiple equations (evidence) but not by multiple hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparisons of means using exploratory and confirmatory approaches.

This article discusses comparisons of means using exploratory and confirmatory approaches. Three methods are discussed: hypothesis testing, model selection based on information criteria, and Bayesian model selection. Throughout the article, an example is used to illustrate and evaluate the two approaches and the three methods. We demonstrate that confirmatory hypothesis testing techniques have more power—that is, have a higher probability of rejecting a false null hypothesis—and confirmatory model selection techniques have a higher probability of choosing the correct or the best hypothesis than their exploratory counterparts. Furthermore, we show that if more than one hypothesis has to be evaluated, model selection has advantages over hypothesis testing. Another, more elaborate example is used to further illustrate confirmatory model selection. The article concludes with recommendations: When a researcher is able to specify reasonable expectations and hypotheses, confirmatory model selection should be used; otherwise, exploratory model selection should be used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fanning the flames of prejudice: The influence of specific incidental emotions on implicit prejudice.

Three experiments examined the impact of incidental emotions on implicit intergroup evaluations. Experiment 1 demonstrated that for unknown social groups, two negative emotions that are broadly applicable to intergroup conflict (anger and disgust) both created implicit bias where none had existed before. However, for known groups about which perceivers had prior knowledge, emotions increased implicit prejudice only if the induced emotion was applicable to the outgroup stereotype. Disgust increased bias against disgust-relevant groups (e.g., homosexuals) but anger did not (Experiment 2); anger increased bias against anger-relevant groups (e.g., Arabs) but disgust did not (Experiment 3). Consistent with functional theories of emotion, these findings suggest that negative intergroup emotions signal specific types of threat. If the emotion-specific threat is applicable to prior expectations of a group, the emotion ratchets up implicit prejudice toward that group. However, if the emotion-specific threat is not applicable to the target group, evaluations remain unchanged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and the relation between risk behavior and perceptions of vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy in college women.

This article reports 2 studies testing the hypothesis that individuals with high self-esteem are more likely than those with low self-esteem to interpret information about their personal vulnerability to health risks in a self-serving manner. Study 1 used an experimental paradigm to demonstrate that self-esteem moderates the influence of review of sexual and contraceptive behavior on college women's perceptions of vulnerability to unplanned pregnancy (N?=?125). Study 2 used a longitudinal design to demonstrate that self-esteem also moderates the relation between naturally occurring changes in college women's sexual behavior and changes in their risk perception (N?=?273). Together, these studies provide evidence that people with high self-esteem use self-serving cognitive strategies to maintain their risk perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypothesis confirmation: The joint effect of positive test strategy and acquiescence response set.

Hypothesis testers tend to ask hypothesis-consistent questions (i.e., they ask about features more likely under the hypothesis than under the alternative). Targets tend to acquiesce (i.e., they provide more yes than no answers). Because yes answers to hypothesis-consistent questions confirm the hypothesis being tested, hypothesis testers should generate hypothesis-confirming data. In the present study, naive hypothesis testers questioned naive targets about their personality traits and, on the basis of targets' answers, drew conclusions about these traits. As predicted, hypothesis testers tended to ask hypothesis-consistent questions, targets tended to acquiesce, and the data generated were consistent with the hypothesis being tested. On the basis of these data, hypothesis testers drew inferences in line with the hypothesis they were testing. Because hypothesis testers derived their conclusions from hypothesis-confirming data, more diagnostic data resulted in a greater confirmation bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)