Depression and attributional style: Interpretations of important personal events.

The reformulated helplessness model of depression predicts that depressed persons attribute negative life events to internal, stable, and global causes while attributing positive life events to external, unstable, and specific causes. In addition to these hypotheses, the present author predicted that depressed persons would attribute negative life events to more controllable causes when compared with nondepressed persons. A 3rd prediction was that depressed persons' controllable causal attributions would be more closely related to independent judgments of the controllability of events than would the attributions of nondepressed persons. These predictions were examined in 45 depressed and 46 nondepressed female undergraduates (determined by the Beck Depression Inventory). Ss reported important personal events, provided untutored explanations of their causes, and rated the importance of particular causes of these events. Results confirm predictions for the internal dimension and the controllable dimension for negative events. Results do not support the 3rd prediction. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

Attributional style among depressed patients.

Male depressed unipolar patients (n?=?30) were more likely to attribute bad outcomes to internal, stable, and global causes than were nondepressed schizophrenics (n?=?15) and nondepressed medical patients (n?=?61). Also, the depressed patients were more evenhanded in their attributions for good and bad events than the other patients. These results support the existence, in clinical depression, of the depressive attributional style postulated by the reformulated learned helplessness model and indicate that it is not a general characteristic of psychopathology. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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, than 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-schemas and risk for depression: A prospective study.

Two longitudinal experiments with 375 undergraduates investigated the role of depressive self-schemas in vulnerability to depression. Ss were divided into 5 groups hypothesized to be at differential risk for depression according to a schema model: depressed schematic, depressed nonschematic, nondepressed schematic, nondepressed nonschematic, and psychopathology control. In Exp I, Ss were followed regularly for 4 mo with self-report and clinical interview measures of depression (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory). There was no evidence of risk for depression associated with schema status apart from initial mood and no interaction of life stress events and schemas. In Exp II, links among self-schemas, information processing, and mood status were investigated. It was shown that depressive self-schemas did not exert an ongoing, active influence on everyday information processing; instead, current mood affected information processing. Remitted depressed Ss resembled nondepressed rather than depressed Ss. Findings support the distinction between concomitant and vulnerability schemas noted by N. Kuiper et al (in press) and help to clarify differences between cognitions that are symptoms of depression and those that may play a causal role under certain conditions. (41 ref) (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)     

A conceptual and empirical review of the depressive realism hypothesis.

Reviews the depressive realism hypothesis that suggests that depressed persons may be more accurate in their perceptions of various situations than are nondepressed persons. The theoretical implications of depressive realism are examined and problematic aspects of assessing the depressive realism hypothesis are clarified. Distortion and realism are distinguished, and the results of a review of 3 substantive areas of research, judgment of contingency studies, performance feedback studies, and interpersonal judgment and feedback studies, are discussed. Positive evidence for the existence of depressive realism was found although the strength of that finding diminished as the ecological validity of studies increased. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal consequences of depression: Responses to men and women enacting a depressed role.

To investigate interpersonal consequences of depressed behavior, telephone interactions were conducted between same- and opposite-sex pairs of 62 male and 64 female undergraduates. In each pair, one person enacted a depressed or nondepressed role. The content of the 2 roles differed only in the presence or absence of characteristically depressive affect and attitudes. Ratings of interest in further contact, personal rejection, and perceived impairment of role functioning all revealed a similar pattern: Depressed persons were more strongly rejected than nondepressed persons, especially by persons of the opposite sex. Interactions with depressed persons elicited significantly more depression in the listener than did interactions with nondepressed persons. Moreover, significantly more feminine traits were attributed to depressed than nondepressed persons. The responses of others to depressed individuals are discussed with respect to their implications for conceptualizing and treating depression. The results also have implications for the understanding of sex differences in the epidemiology of depression. (24 ref) (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)     

Impact of depression on response to comedy: A dynamic facial coding analysis.

Individuals suffering from depression show diminished facial responses to positive stimuli. Recent cognitive research suggests that depressed individuals may appraise emotional stimuli differently than do nondepressed persons. Prior studies do not indicate whether depressed individuals respond differently when they encounter positive stimuli that are difficult to avoid. The authors investigated dynamic responses of individuals varying in both history of major depressive disorder (MDD) and current depressive symptomatology (N = 116) to robust positive stimuli. The Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen, 1978) was used to measure affect-related responses to a comedy clip. Participants reporting current depressive symptomatology were more likely to evince affect-related shifts in expression following the clip than were those without current symptomatology. This effect of current symptomatology emerged even when the contrast focused only on individuals with a history of MDD. Specifically, persons with current depressive symptomatology were more likely than those without current symptomatology to control their initial smiles with negative affect-related expressions. These findings suggest that integration of emotion science and social cognition may yield important advances for understanding depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective attention and clinical depression: Performance on a deployment-of-attention task.

Clinically depressed and nondepressed individuals completed a deployment-of-attention task developed by I. H. Gotlib, A. L. McLachlan, and A. N. Katz (1988). Results indicated that the clinically depressed individuals perform the task in an unbiased fashion, attending equally to positive-, negative-, and neutral-content stimuli. In contrast, the nondepressed individuals demonstrated a "protective" bias against the perception of negative stimuli by avoiding such material in favor of positive or neutral stimuli. Overall, the results of this study suggest that clinically depressed individuals do not show an attentional bias toward negative information, but rather, fail to demonstrate the positive or protective bias that is evident in nondepressed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive self-presentation: Beyond self-handicapping.

An experiment was conducted to examine the notion that depressives' responses would reflect a protective self-presentation style (M. G. Hill et al, 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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of changing contingencies on the behavior of depressed and nondepressed individuals.

The effects of rules vs shaping on the behavior of depressed and nondepressed individuals were compared. Extending the findings in the depressive realism literature to a learning paradigm, the behavior of depressed individuals was more sensitive to changing contingencies than was the behavior of nondepressed individuals. Contrary to hypotheses, however, this effect appeared due primarily to the nondepressive Ss' strategy of continuing to follow an experimenter's inaccurate rules. Results suggest the relative absence of self-presentational concerns may lead depressed individuals to be more accurate in judging environmental contingencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of actor depression on observer attributions: Existence and impact of negative attributions toward the depressed.

This experiment examined whether others explain the successes and failures of depressed versus nondepressed people differently and how these attributions are related to affective and behavioral reactions to a request for psychological help. Ss reported attributions about the success and failure experiences of hypothetical depressed and nondepressed people. Ss also responded to a hypothetical request for psychological help by indicating their attributions, affective reactions, willingness to help, and desire for future social contact. As hypothesized, Ss displayed more negative attributions toward depressed people. Replicating prior research (W. P. Sacco et al; see record 1986-12000-001), Ss responded to the depressive's request for help with mixed emotional and behavioral reactions. Path analyses revealed that attributions influenced affective reactions, which influenced willingness to help; but a more complex pattern emerged from the analysis of desire for future social contact. Results are discussed in terms of the interpersonal impact and possible causes of negative attributions about the experiences of depressed people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and the false consensus effect: A note concerning the study by Tabachnik, Crocker, and Alloy.

Reexamines results of an experiment by N. Tabachnik et al (see record 1984-12223-001) and argues that, contrary to the original report, neither depressed nor nondepressed students were shown to exhibit consensus bias. A distinction is drawn between relative agreement of self- and other-ratings, identified as consensus bias, and absolute agreement of self- and other-ratings that may or may not index the same phenomenon. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and the illusion of control: The role of esteem maintenance and impression management.

Examined 2 motivational explanations (the esteem maintenance and impression management hypotheses) for depressive realism and nondepressive illusions of control. After completing measures assessing self-esteem (SE) and attitudes about the relationship between SE and control, 66 depressed (DP) and 77 nondepressed (NDP) Ss performed a judgment of noncontingency task in either a public or private setting. Findings suggest that both of the motivational hypotheses were related to control judgments. However, there was no evidence that these motives are the ones that underlie the typical failure of depressed individuals to succumb to the illusion of control. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample.

Previous research reported conflicting results concerning the influence of depression on cognitive task performance. Whereas some studies reported that depression enhances performance, other studies reported negative or null effects. These discrepant findings appear to result from task variation, as well as the severity and treatment status of participant depression. To better understand these moderating factors, we study the performance of individuals—in a complex sequential decision task similar to the secretary problem—who are nondepressed, depressed, and recovering from a major depressive episode. We find that depressed individuals perform better than do nondepressed individuals. Formal modeling of participants' decision strategies suggested that acutely depressed participants had higher thresholds for accepting options and made better choices than either healthy participants or those recovering from depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive correlates of depressive symptoms in hospitalized adolescents

This study examined the relationship between self-reported depression and cognitive style in adolescent inpatients. Attributional style, perceived control over environmental events, and hopelessness were assessed in 80 consecutive admissions to an adolescent psychiatric unit. BDI scores were used to classify 36 patients as depressed and 44 as nondepressed. Adolescents who reported depression also reported significantly more internal attributions for negative events and less internal attributions for positive events, evidenced a more external locus of control, and described themselves as significantly more hopeless than did the nondepressed adolescents. Hopelessness and internal attributions for negative events were the strongest predictors of depressive symptoms. In contrast to the findings of most studies using clinical populations of depressed children and adolescents, a maladaptive cognitive style and self-reported depression were highly, positively correlated.     

Concept of social skill with special reference to the behavior of depressed persons.

Tested the general hypothesis that depressed persons, as a group, are less socially skillful than nondepressed individuals. Social skill was defined as the complex ability both to emit behaviors that are positively reinforced and not to emit behaviors that are punished by others. The interpersonal behaviors of 8 depressed and 11 nondepressed undergraduates in 2 groups were compared. All verbal interchanges among group members were coded. Results were cross-validated in both groups and were generally consistent in showing depressed Ss to be lower than controls on a number of operational measures of social skill (i.e., activity level, interpersonal range, rate of positive reactions emitted, and action latency). (32 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: Theory and evidence.

The attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness model as outlined by L. Y. Abramson et al (see record 1979-00305-001) claims that an explanatory style in which bad events are explained by internal, stable, and global causes is associated with depressive symptoms. This style is claimed to be a risk factor for subsequent depression when bad events are encountered. A variety of new investigations of the helplessness reformulation are described that have employed 5 research strategies: cross-sectional correlational studies, longitudinal studies, experiments of nature, laboratory experiments, and case studies. Ss in these investigations included children, college students, poor women, depressed patients, and prisoners. Most of these studies involved the use of the Attributional Style Questionnaire and measures such as the Beck Depression Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Check List. These studies converge in their support for the learned helplessness reformulation. (120 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)