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)