Conversational and social responses to depressive interpersonal behavior.

Examined responses to depressive interpersonal behavior. 30 undergraduates interacted with a same-sex confederate for 7 min in the context of waiting together for an experiment to begin. Confederates employed either a depressed role (depressive interpersonal behavior and reporting serious deficits in functioning), a normal role (normal interpersonal behavior and reporting minimal deficits in functioning), or a physically ill role (normal interpersonal behavior and reporting serious deficits in functioning). Ss who interacted with a "depressive" responded with a higher rate of silences and directly negative comments and a lower rate of overall verbal responding. Their expressions of direct support were equivalent to those made to the "physically ill" confederates and greater than those in the normal condition. Ss also were more rejecting of partners who behaved in a depressed manner and described them in more negative terms and as having greater interpersonal impact than confederates in other roles. There were no induced mood differences. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions as moderators of affective and behavioral responses to social failure.

Undergraduate women with a helpless or nonhelpless attributional style as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire were subjected to social failure or success (interaction with unresponsive or responsive confederates). Subsequently, each interacted with a second naive subject. As predicted, individuals with a helpless attributional style became depressed and hostile (as measured by the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List) after interacting with an unresponsive confederate. Furthermore, in comparison with nonhelpless subjects, helpless subjects who interacted with the unresponsive confederate evidenced more tension in their voices during both interactions and less pleasantness in their nonverbal behavior during the second interaction. Overall, the second group of subjects did not respond differently to the first group of subjects as an interactive function of attributions and experimental condition of the initial subjects. However, helpless subjects in the second group spoke less, were less nonverbally pleasant, and became more hostile than did nonhelpless subjects after interacting with individuals who had previously interacted with an unresponsive confederate. A consistent but unexpected pattern was found for nonhelpless subjects: They responded more adaptively to stressful than to nonstressful interactions. Results are interpreted as providing support for a vulnerability model of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal consequences of overt self-criticism: A comparison with neutral and self-enhancing presentations of self.

Forty-eight female college students interacted with female confederates enacting a self-critical, self-enhancing, or neutral role. Subjects interacting with the self-critical confederates (a) rated the confederate's task performance higher than the confederate rated it; (b) rated their own performance lower; (c) made more positive conversational comments to the confederate; and (d) made more self-critical conversational comments. Although self-critics received both direct and indirect support, privately they were perceived as poorly functioning individuals. There was some evidence that subjects interacting with self-enhancers raised their self-evaluations and downgraded the confederate's performance. Privately, self-enhancers were perceived as competent but socially unattractive. Self-criticism was discussed as a style of strategic self-presentation and the potential deleterious effects of the interpersonal consequences described in this article were considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regional brain electrical asymmetries discriminate between previously depressed and healthy control subjects.

Baseline resting electroencephalogram (EEG) activity was recorded from 6 normothymic depressives and 8 controls using three different reference montages. Power in all frequency bands was extracted by Fourier transformation. Significant Group?×?Region?×?Hemisphere interactions were found consistently for alpha band power only. Previously depressed subjects had less left-sided anterior and less right-sided posterior activation (i.e., more alpha activity) than did never depressed subjects. Previously depressed subjects had no history of pharmacological treatment and did not differ from controls in emotional state at the time of testing. The pattern of anterior and posterior asymmetry in the previously depressed subjects is similar to that found in acutely depressed subjects and suggests that this may be a state-independent marker for depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of alcohol on social anxiety in women: Cognitive versus physiological processes.

Randomly assigned 32 female social drinkers (18–25 yr old undergraduates) to 4 conditions in a 2?×?2 factorial design that controlled for drink content and expectations. Ss were administered either an alcoholic or a nonalcoholic beverage and were led to believe that their drinks contained or did not contain alcohol. After finishing their drinks Ss participated in a study of social anxiety in which they were requested to interact with a male confederate of the experimenter. Multiple measures, including heart rate, skin conductance, and overt behavioral and self-report responses, were recorded. Ss who expected alcohol showed significant elevations in physiological arousal and were rated as more anxious on observational measures of social behavior. Self-report measures failed to yield any differences among groups. Implications for the tension reduction theory of alcohol use and the importance of multiple response measures are discussed. (1? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A prospective test of an integrative interpersonal theory of depression: A naturalistic study of college roommates.

This study tested an integrated interpersonal theory of depression, which combines J. C. Coyne's (1976) interpersonal theory of depression with work on the interplay between self-enhancement and self-consistency theory. Students' (targets') and their same-gender roommates' appraisals of each other, depression and anxiety levels, reassurance seeking, and negative feedback seeking were assessed at Time 1 (T1), and again at Time 2 (T2), 3 wks later. Consistent with the theoretical integration (1) depressed targets reported engaging in more negative feedback seeking than nondepressed targets, and tended to report seeking more reassurance than nondepressed targets at T1; (2) for male (but not female) targets, the combination of negative feedback seeking, high reassurance seeking, and depression at T1 predicted T1 to T2 increases in rejection by roommates; and (3) rejection effects applied to depressive symptoms, but not anxious symptoms or anhedonic mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal perceptions and consequences of depressive-significant other relationships: A naturalistic study of college roommates.

Investigated social perceptions and consequences of depression and anxiety in roommate relationships. Mildly depressed, anxious but nondepressed, and nondepressed-nonanxious students (targets) and normal, same-sex roommates (79 roommate pairs) (1) rated the interpersonal impact on themselves of typical associations with their roommates and (2) judged their own interpersonal impact. Only depressed men received negative evaluations and emotional reactions from their roommates. However, depressed women reported more negative reactions to their normal roommates than vice versa. Finally, depressed targets perceived their interpersonal impact negatively, whereas their normal roommates perceived their own interpersonal impact as overly positive. These findings suggest that negative relationships between depressives and nondepressed others may be attributable, at least in part, to both participants' misperceptions of their social behavior and its consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and self-disclosure: Toward a motivational model.

The self-disclosures of socially anxious and nonanxious Ss were compared within the framework of R. M. Arkin's (1981) motivational theory of social anxiety. Ss (N?=?84 women) were paired with a confederate who disclosed at either a high or a low level of intimacy (i.e., the classic reciprocity paradigm). Consistent with Arkin's theory, anxious Ss were concerned with self-protection during the task and disclosed at a moderate level of intimacy regardless of their partner's behavior. In addition, anxious Ss did not reciprocate their partners' disclosures as well as did nonanxious Ss. The self-protective behaviors of the anxious Ss were associated with less liking and more discomfort on the part of their partners. This suggests that the adoption of self-protective strategies may elicit negative interpersonal reactions that maintain self-defeating interpersonal patterns in socially anxious people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of objective evidence of expertness, nonverbal behavior, and subject sex on client-perceived expertness.

The effects of objective evidence of specialized training, expert nonverbal behaviors, and S sex were studied in a counseling analog setting. 80 undergraduates viewed videotapes of a standardized counseling interaction between a confederate counselor and client. Ss then rated the counselor on a credibility checklist. The results of a 2?×?2?×?2 ANOVA indicate that both objective evidence and nonverbal behaviors significantly affected perceived expertness and that there was no difference in the credibility ratings of the counselor between male and female Ss. There were mixed interactions from the data. Objective evidence and sex did interact significantly, as did objective evidence and nonverbal behavior. The interaction of sex and nonverbal behavior and of sex, objective evidence, and nonverbal behavior did not achieve significance. Implications for practice and research are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Victim reactions in aggressive erotic films as a factor in violence against women.

Investigated whether the behavioral characteristics of the people in erotic films and the nature of the targets available for aggression afterward can affect subsequent aggression. In Exp I, 80 male undergraduates were angered by a male or female confederate. They were then shown a neutral film or 1 of 3 erotic films. The erotic films differed in terms of their aggressive content (2 were aggressive and 1 was not) and the reactions of the female victim in the 2 aggressive films (positive vs negative). Ss were then allowed to aggress against the confederate via electric shock. Results indicated that films had no effect on male targets, whereas both types of aggressive erotic films increased aggression toward the females. In Exp II with 80 male Ss, the effects of the above films on nonangry viewers were investigated with only female confederates. Results indicate that angered Ss were more aggressive toward the female after viewing either aggressive erotic film but that only the positive-outcome aggressive film increased aggression in nonangered Ss. The theoretical and applied aspects of aggressive and nonaggressive erotica are discussed. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are shy people reluctant to ask for help?

Examined the help-seeking behaviors of shy and not-shy men and women. In Study 1, Ss worked on an impossible task in the presence of a male or female confederate whom they were told had just successfully completed the task. Shy Ss asked for help no less frequently than did not-shy Ss overall, but they did seek help less frequently from opposite-sex confederates than from same-sex confederates. In Study 2, shy and not-shy men and women were required to call a man and a woman and ask them to complete a questionnaire. All respondents agreed to return the questionnaire. However, when shy Ss (compared with not-shy Ss) called opposite-sex respondents, fewer of the questionnaires were actually returned. When making their calls, shy Ss sounded somewhat less warm and confident than did not-shy Ss, and they also spoke less fluently. Fluency, in turn, predicted response rate for the shy subjects calling respondents of the opposite sex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Congruence of personality and life events in depression.

Consistent with the personality–event congruence hypothesis, highly sociotropic depressed patients (n?=?19) reported more recent negative interpersonal events than negative autonomy events and more negative interpersonal events than did highly autonomous depressed patients (n?=?22), for whom the hypothesis was not supported. There was no evidence of such congruence among nondepressed schizophrenic patients (n?=?44). In a 2nd study, there was significant personality–event congruence in dysphoric students (n?=?26) but not in nondysphoric students (n?=?56). Both the high-sociotropy and high-autonomy dysphoric groups separately yielded nonsignificant trends consistent with congruence. These findings add to the growing support for the importance of the sociotropy construct in depression and weaker support for the autonomy construct or its measurement, and they suggest that the congruence effect does not generalize to all psychopathologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational effects on neuropsychological functioning: Comparison of depressed versus nondepressed individuals.

The neuropsychology of depression was examined in terms of organic and motivational hypotheses. Thirty medication-free depressed outpatients (selected according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [American Psychiatric Association, 1980] criteria for major depression) and 30 nondepressed normal controls were evaluated with a variety of neuropsychology measures. Prior to testing, subjects were assigned randomly to either a motivated or nonmotivated condition. A task measuring level of motivation demonstrated efficacy of the two motivation conditions. A 2?×?2 (Diagnosis?×?Motivational Level) multivariate analysis of variance of all the dependent measures revealed a significant main effect for depression, but no effect for motivation and no interaction. Univariate analyses demonstrated that the depressed group was impaired on visuospatial short-term memory and learning and on verbal learning. The finding of neuropsychological deficit in depressed subjects was not attributable to motivational factors. The problems with conceptualizing depression as a right-hemisphere dysfunction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The symptom perception hypothesis revised: Depression and anxiety play different roles in concurrent and retrospective physical symptom reporting.

According to the classic symptom perception hypothesis (Costa & McCrae, 1987; Watson & Pennebaker, 1989), the global predisposition to frequently experience a variety of negative emotions—that is, neuroticism (N) or trait negative affectivity (NA)—is associated with inflated physical symptom reporting. We tested a revision of this hypothesis, which posits distinctive roles for depression and anxiety in the physical symptom experience. Three studies tested predictions from the revised symptom perception hypothesis: (a) that depressive affect should be related to inflated retrospective physical symptom reports and (b) that anxious affect should be related to inflated concurrent, or momentary, physical symptom reports. Study 1 assessed the relations among N/NA, depressive affect, and recall of physical symptoms experienced in the previous 3 weeks. Depressive affect was uniquely and positively associated with recalling more symptoms. When entered with depressive affect in multiple regression analyses, neuroticism was not associated with level of symptoms recalled. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to anxious, depressed, angry, happy, or neutral mood inductions and then reported about concurrent symptom experience. Participants in the anxious mood condition reported significantly more concurrent physical symptoms than did those in the other 4 conditions. In Study 3, anxious, depressed, or neutral mood was induced, followed by assessment of both concurrent and retrospective physical symptoms. Those assigned to the anxious mood induction reported more concurrent symptoms, while those in the depressed mood condition reported having experienced more symptoms in the past. These findings are consistent with the idea that encoding and retrieval processes, which are differentially associated with anxious versus depressed affect, influence different aspects of physical symptom reporting. The results have implications for self-diagnosis, medical treatment-seeking, and care, and potential insights about other complex social and interpersonal behaviors are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The price of soliciting and receiving negative feedback: Self-verification theory as a vulnerability to depression theory.

The hypothesis that people who seek and receive negative feedback are vulnerable to increases in depressed symptoms was tested among 100 undergraduates and their roommates. Students and roommates completed questionnaires on their views of each other and on their own levels of negative feedback seeking, depressed and anxious symptoms, negative and positive affect, and self-esteem. Three weeks later, students and roommates completed the same questionnaires. Results were, in general, consistent with prediction. Students who reported an interest in their roommates' negative feedback and who lived with a roommate who viewed them negatively were at heightened risk for increases in depressed symptoms. These results could not be explained in terms of the variables' relations to trait self-esteem. The symptom specificity of the effect was moderately supported. Implications for work on interpersonal vulnerability to depression are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The student as Pygmalion: Effect of student expectation on the teacher.

Two experiments examined the possibility that student expectations regarding a teacher's competence can be communicated to the teacher and bring about the expected behavior. In Exp I, 39 female undergraduates acting as students were administered a lesson by a teacher (confederate) who the students expected to be either effective or ineffective. Results show significant differences in student attitudes, performance, and nonverbal behavior according to expectation. In Exp II, confederates acting as students emitted either positive or negative nonverbal behavior toward 40 female undergraduates acting as their teachers. There were significant effects on teachers' attitudes and behavior. Moreover, ratings of the teacher by judges showed teachers were rated as being more adequate under conditions of positive student nonverbal behavior than negative nonverbal behavior. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recall of parental behavior by acute depressives, remitted depressives, and nondepressives.

The goal of this study was to determine whether depressives' recall of parental behavior is a stable characteristic that persists even during asymptomatic periods. Recall of parental behavior was measured in a large community sample that was followed for one year. Four groups of subjects were formed according to their depression status: depressed, remitted depressed who had a history of depression but were not depressed during the study, cases who became depressed during the follow-up period, and never-depressed subjects. The results were generally consistent with the hypothesis that recalling one's parents as having been rejecting and unloving is not a stable personality characteristic of depression-prone persons. The currently depressed subjects differed as expected from the nondepressed subjects; however, the remitted depressed, regardless of how many past episodes of depression they had, did not differ from the nondepressed controls in their recall of parental behavior. The comparison of controls and cases resulted in an unexpected and difficult-to-interpret Sex?×?Group interaction. The implication of these findings for cognitive theories of depression are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vulnerable self-esteem and depressive symptoms: Prospective findings comparing three alternative conceptualizations.

Across diverse theoretical orientations, vulnerable self-esteem (SE) is thought to act as a diathesis for depression after life stress. In the present study, the roles of trait-level SE, low SE primed by depressed mood, and labile SE in prospectively predicting changes in depressive symptoms in a nonclinical sample (n?=?192) were examined. Results indicate that labile SE predicted increases in symptoms. Furthermore, a 3-way interaction (Labile SE?×?Academic Stress?×?Initial Depression) suggested that in Ss who were initially asymptomatic, lability made Ss differentially vulnerable to increases in depressive symptoms after stress. In contrast to labile SE, trait-level SE and priming of low SE were relatively weak predictors of changes in depressive symptoms and did not interact with stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and marital interaction: Concordance between intent and perception of communication.

This study was designed to examine the perceptions and recall of interpersonal communications in marital dyads with a clinically depressed spouse. Nine depressed and 10 nondepressed psychiatric outpatients and 10 nondepressed nonpsychiatric controls interacted with their spouses, both partners simultaneously coding as positive, neutral, or negative both the intended impact of their own communications and the perceived impact of their spouses' messages. Using videotapes of the interactions, observers also coded each message. Analyses suggested that compared with nondepressed subjects, depressed patients have a negative perception of their environment. Although the depressed patients intended and perceived a lower percentage of positive messages and a higher percentage of negative messages, their recall of their coding was accurate. In addition, although they coded and estimated lower concordance than did subjects in the two nondepressed groups, they tended to overestimate their concordance, as did all of the other participants. The observers' coding did not discriminate between groups but was more negative than the participants' self- or the spouse-ratings. Implications of these results both for theories of depression and for approaches to treatment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)