Depression and information processing : perceptions of others and memory for their outcomes

Abstract

A number of theories have suggested a relation between depression and several cognitive and behavioral variables. The present study investigated how depressed and nondepressed individuals differ in the way they perceive others, and what they remember about others. Depressed and nondepressed college students were selected based on their Beck Depression Inventory scores. Subjects read one of two scenarios. One scenario was a description of a person who received predominantly positive outcomes, the other was a description of a person who received predominantly negative outcomes. Later, subjects were asked to rate the target person on several dimensions, and were asked to recall as much as possible from the scenario. The results suggest that: a) depressed subjects found the negative target as more enjoyable than did the nondepressed subjects; b) depressed subjects found the negative scenario target as more similar to them than nondepressed subjects did, with the reverse occuring for the positive scenario target; and c) depressed subjects recalled more negative intrusions than the nondepressed subjects.