Is depressive realism real?

Clznzcnl P?ycholo~ Rmeur, Vol. 11, pp. 565-584, Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.

1YSl

IS DEPRESSIVE

Copyright

REALISM

0272-7358/91 $3.00 + .orl 0 1991 Pergamon Press plc

REAL?

Ruby Ackermann Robert J. DeRubeis University

of Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT. Recent work investigating depressed peoples’ judgments, especially judgments about self-relevant information, has led to the proposition that depressed individuals are generally more accurate than nondepressed people. In this review, it is argued that only studies using tasks containing an objective standard against which to compare subjects’ responses can inform us about the validity of this proposition. For this reason, studies commonly invoked in discussions of depressive realism are reviewed in two sections. First, studies that do not allow for an assessment of accuracy are addressed. Second, those studies in which it is possible to determine subjects’ accuracy are considered. The review of the literature reveals that although many studies have generated evidence consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis, almost as many have provided evidence inconsistent with this view. A more intriguing finding is that the results appear to vary as a function of the type of task used in the studies. Whereas results from contingency judgment and self-other studies suggest that depressed and dysphoric individuals are more accurate than nondepressed individuals, studies examining subjects’ recall of self-evaluative information indicate that the nondepressed subjects are more accurate. We propose several explanations for this pattern of findings, along with recommendations for flaure research.

A great deal of interest has been generated recently by the proposition that “see the world clearly” in a way that nondepressed people who are depressed people cannot. It was Freud who, more than 70 years ago, suggested that it takes the experience of melancholia for a person to “be accessible to truth” about himself and his place in the world (1917/1957, p. 246). Laboratory work reported in the last decade on the “depressive realism” hypothesis has rekindled interest in Freud’s controversial claim. Alloy and Abramson’s (1979) frequently cited “sadder but wiser” experiments, in which they report that nondepressed subjects gave less accurate judgments of contingency than did dysphoric subjects, were a major impetus for this renewed interest. Since 1979, dozens of laboratory investigations of depressive realism phenomCorrespondence should be addressed to Ruby Ackermann, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19 104. 565

Department

of Psychology,

566

R. Ackermnnn

and R. J. DeRttbei.r

ena have been reported, and several authors have reviewed this literature (Alloy & Abramson, 1988; Ruehlman, West, & Pasahow, 1985; Taylor & Brown, 1988). These reviewers have argued persuasively that self-deception and bias contribute to the maintenance of a nondepressed person’s sense of well-being, and to the pursuit of goals that, in the long run, are adaptive. But some theorists have gone further and posited that an even stronger version of the depressive realism hypothesis is upheld by available research findings (see Alloy & Abramson, 1988). They conclude that studies show that depressed individuals are especially capable of making undistorted judgments, especially judgments about self-relevant events. The strong version of the depressive realism hypothesis favored by these authors might be spelled out thus: Depressed people are often more realistic or accurate in their perceptions and judgments than their nondepressed counterparts, who more frequently make distorted or biased judgments. If this strong version of the depressive realism hypothesis was correct, it would have profound implications for conceptions of psychopathology, theories of depression, and treatments of depression. In particular, it would counter the view that an essential ingredient of emotional or psychological disturbance is an impaired capacity to test reality (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Furthermore, it would contradict the basis of theories of depression that posit distortion as a primary attribute of the depressed person’s thinking (e.g., Beck, 1967; Seligman, 1975), and it would call into question treatment methods, such as cognitive therapy, that derive from these theories (Beck, Rush, Shaw, SC Emery, 1979). For instance, it would suggest that cognitive therapy, which has been shown to be an effective treatment of depression (see DeRubeis & Beck, 1988), works not by promoting better reality testing in the depressed patient, but by fostering the development of optimistic biases and illusions such as those found in nondepressed individuals (Taylor & Brown, 1988). In this article, we argue that the only findings that speak directly to the depressive realism hypothesis are those obtained with procedures in which an accurate response can be specified (see also Dobson SC Franche, 1989). That is, only studies that include an objective standard against which to compare subjects’ responses, and thus allow for a determination of subjects’ accuracy (or distortion), are germane to an evaluation of the hypothesis. In this review, then, we focus on those studies that allow for a determination of subjects’ accuracy. Before doing so, we reveal how in many of the commonly cited studies there is no objective way to determine the accuracy of subjects’judgments. After we review the studies that do allow for an assessment of accuracy, we discuss the fact that different experimental methods have consistently produced different results. Finally, we suggest possible explanations for the pattern of results obtained in studies of depressive realism, and we offer recommendations for future

research. DEPRESSIVE

STUDIES

THAT

DO NOT

REALISM-EMPIRICAL ALLOW

EVIDENCE:

FOR AN ASSESSMENT

OF ACCURACY

Expectancies Chance-skill. expectancies

In one paradigm designed to test learned helplessness are assessed in two chance-determined tasks, one that

theory, appears

Depressive Realism

567

skill-determined, and one that appears chance-determined (e.g., Miller & Seligsubject is one who perceives man, 1973). Thus, in these studies, an “accurate” the probability of success on any given trial to be 50%. Consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis, the depressed subjects’ final expectancies of success in the “skill” tasks are reported to be closer to 50% than those of nondepressed subjects (M. E. P. Seligman, personal communication, cited in Alloy & Abramson, 1988). However, it is not clear that a final expectancy of 50% constitutes the correct answer in this task. People bring certain expectations to tasks, especially those they believe to be skill-determined. One such expectation is that one’s performance can improve with practice. Therefore, even if a subject has experienced only a 50% rate of success to a given point in the experiment, a reasonable expectation is that, in the future, his or her success rate will increase as he or she learns the task. Thus, we argue that there is no objectively accurate expectation, since expecting either an equal or greater rate of success on future trials is, on the face of it, equally reasonable. Another line of argument has been advanced in support of the depressive realism hypothesis on the basis of these experiments. The investigators in these studies have assumed that expectancy shifts following success or failure in a skill task should be greater than shifts that follow success or failure in a chance task. This is because skill-based outcomes presumably reflect the subject’s own responses and abilities, whereas chance-based outcomes reflect factors that are beyond the subject’s control. If this is the case, then it is more reasonable to modify one’s expectations concerning future performance rived from a skill task than from a chance task. studies, both tasks are chance-tasks. That is, even believe that one of the tasks is skill-determined, in success is held constant in both task types. On this

on the basis of feedback deHowever, in the chance-skill though the subject is led to actuality the subject’s rate of basis, it has been argued that

small expectancy shifts following success and failure experiences in the skill task reflect a more accurate perception of the actual response-outcome contingency. And, since both dysphoric subjects’ (e.g., Miller & Seligman, 1973) and depressed patients (Abramson, Garber, Edwards, SC Seligman, 1978) exhibit smaller expectancy shifts than nondepressed subjects in the skill conditions, the chanceskill studies have been cited as providing evidence that the depressed (and dysphoric) subjects astutely perceive the sham nature of the skill task, whereas the nondepressed subjects are duped (Alloy & Abramson, 1988; Ruehlman et al., 1985). But, there is another interpretation of these results. One could view the small expectancy changes exhibited by the depressed subjects as indicative of an insensitiuity to the experimental manipulations. Since performance is usually more in formative under a skill condition, why do the depressed subjects ignore the “feedback” they are given, and act as if it was a chance-determined task? One explanation, indeed, the one set forth by the authors of these chance-skill studies is that the “. . . depressed subjects . . . distort the outcomes of skilled responding as being response-independent” (Miller, Seligman, & Kurlander, 1975, p. 347; see also Klein & Seligman, 1976; Miller & Seligman, 1973).

‘Following the recommendations of Kendall, Hollon, Beck, Hammen, and Ingram (1987), we distinguish between subjects that are clinically depressed and those that are dysphoric.

It is not possible to ascertain which interpretation is correct. If one assumes that the experimenter’s skill manipulation was successful (i.e., subjects were made to believe that it was indeed a skill-determined task), then the nondepressed subjects were justified for shifting their expectancies on the basis of the feedback they received; it is then the depressed subjects who “failed to perceive” the response-outcome contingency. If, however, the skill manipulations were unsuccessful in these studies (i.e., subjects saw through the sham), then it follows that the depressed subjects were the more accurate perceivers of the actual responseoutcome contingency in the skill task. Since there is nothing in these studies to help us choose between the two interpretations, the correct answer in the chanceskill studies is indeterminate. The results of such studies cannot help shed light on the depressive realism hypothesis. Expectancy of success. Golin, Terrel, and Johnson (1977) asked dysphoric and nondepressed subjects to give ratings of how confident they were in a dice game in which the dice were rolled either by the subject (self-condition), or by the experimenter (other-condition). Dice rolls of 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12 were designated as the “winning” rolls (rolls of 5, 6, 7, and 8 constituted “losing” rolls). Therefore, the objective, chance-determined probability of success was 44%. Dysphoric subjects’ ratings of confidence (made on a IO-point scale) were very close to 4.4 when they rolled the dice themselves (self-condition), whereas the nondepressed subjects’ confidence ratings were significantly higher. This result, along with a similar finding by Golin, Terrel, Weitz, and Drost (1979) in a comparison of depressed with schizophrenic patients, has been interpreted as indicating that the depressed and dysphoric subjects’ expectancies of success accurately reflected the objective probability of success and, as such, are examples of depressive realism (Alloy SC Abramson, 1988). However, note that the subjects were asked to give confidence ratings, not probability estimates. There can be no right or wrong levels of confidence.’ Furthermore, the dice roll results selected by Golin and colleagues were the seven results least likely to occur. To naive subjects, it may have appeared as though the odds were stacked in their favor; there were seven winning results and only four losers! Thus, even if the subjects did interpret the task as one in which they were to estimate the probability of winning, the task can be a deceptive one, even to the most sophisticated of subjects. In sum, although the findings of Golin differences jects, there

dence ratings. Thus, these pressive realism hypothesis.

‘Even

if one

accurate mind

still

in their

that

depressed equally

wants

subjects

the

to be distorting

in the other-condition.

are interesting

provide

the

evidence

nondepressed

dysphoric high

was quite

in that-

and depressed (or dysphoric) subwhich to compare subjects’ confi-

depressed/dysphoric

than

“inappropriately” subjects

cannot

the

ratings

et al. (1977),

gave

by nondepressed

wrong

results

to consider

confidence

in Golin

for the croupier, ing given

and colleagues

were found between nondepressed is no objective standard against

subjects,

confidence close

to 4.4.

in the self-condition,

germane

subjects subjects, when giving

ratings, Thus, then

to the

as somehow

de-

more

it must be kept in confidence ratings

whereas

the average

if one considers

the dysphoric

rat-

the non-

subjects

were

Depressive Realism

569

Attributions

Other studies often invoked as supporting the depressive realism hypothesis are the attribution studies (Alloy & Abramson, 1988; Ruehlman et al., 1985; Taylor SC Brown, 1988). Many of these studies indicate that nondepressed subjects exhibit a “self-serving attributional bias”; that is, the tendency to make more internal, stable, and global attributions for positive than for negative outcomes (e.g., Bradley, 1978). It appears that depressed and dysphoric individuals exhibit this tendency either to a lesser extent or not at all. That is, depressed individuals’ attributions are often quite “evenhanded” (similar) for positive and negative events (e.g., Raps, Reinhard, Peterson, Abramson, SC Seligman, 1982). However, as Alloy and Abramson (1988) note, “the attribution studies have not employed methods that allow them to assess the degree of distortion in depressed and nondepressed persons’ causal inferences because they contain no measures of the objectively correct causes of the relevant events” (p. 234). Furthermore, it has been argued that bias cannot be inferred from asymmetrical attributions for positive and negative outcomes (see Miller & Moretti, 1988). Hence, since the attribution studies also do not contain an objectively correct answer, this set of studies cannot be used to evaluate hypotheses about depressive realism or distortion. Perception

of Evaluative

Information

of task performance feedback. DeMonbreun and Craighead (1977) asked depressed and nondepressed psychiatric outpatients and nondepressed nonpsychiatric controls to perform a task in which the correct trial-by-trial response was ambiguous (there was more than one acceptable response). After every trial, subjects were provided with either positive, negative, or ambiguous feedback concerning their responses via five achromatic slides that ranged from light grey to black. The subjects were asked to report the valence of the feedback. However, they had been informed of the existence of only four of the five slides. The experimenters were interested in how the subjects perceived the middle-density, undefined slide, as well as how they perceived the four unambiguous slides. In addition, after each of two blocks of trials, subjects were asked to recall the number of times they had received feedback indicating that their responses had been “acceptable.” There is no doubt that there is a right answer on the trials in which the feedback was defined and, therefore, unambiguous; however, there is no correct answer on the ambiguous trials. According to DeMonbreun and Craighead (1977), in their study an accurate subject was one who perceived half of the ambiguous feedback trials as positive feedback trials, and the other half as negative feedback trials. But on any given ambiguous trial, there is no right answer; either answer reflects some sort of unavoidable “distortion” on the subject’s part. Although the data derived from the unambiguous trials could be useful and informative concerning the relation between depression and realism/distortion, data from the ambiguous trials are not. Since the subjects’ attempts to recall the number of acceptable responses they had given were made on the basis of both the unambiguous and ambiguous trials, there is no objectively correct answer against which to compare their estimates. Therefore, this study and other similar ones (e.g., Dobson & Shaw, 1981; Dykman, Abramson, Alloy, & Hartlage, 1989; DykPerception

570

R. Ackermann and R. J. DeRubeis

man & Volpicelli, 1983) cannot provide evidence jects’ perceptions of evaluative information.

concerning

the accuracy of sub-

of evaluative personality feedback. Vestre and Caulfield (1986) provided subjects with neutral personality feedback composed of 15 MMPI items that had received intermediate favorability ratings in an earlier study (Dahlstrom 8c Welsh, 1960). Subjects were asked to indicate their overall impression of the personality description as it applied to them. Whereas the dysphoric subjects rated the feedback less favorably than did the nondepressed subjects, both groups overestimated the feedback relative to a neutral score of “4” on a sevenpoint scale. Vestre and Caulfield (1986) concluded that the dysphoric subjects were, therefore, more accurate than the nondepressed subjects. However, their “objective” measure of the feedback favorability was not ideal for several reasons. First, the favorability ratings Vestre and Caulfield used to select the MMPI items were generated by a separate sample 16 years previously. In addition, the two samples were confronted with different tasks. Whereas Vestre and Caulfield’s subjects were asked to evaluate self-referent feedback, DahlStrom and Welsh’s subjects evaluated the items in general, on a more abstract level. Also, Vestre and Caulfield’s subjects gave their impression of the feedback as a whole, not item-by-item, as had subjects in the earlier sample. Therefore, though Vestre and Caulfield intended their personality feedback to be neutral as a whole, the only evidence they have about the neutrality of the stimuli is itemby-item. Indeed, the most germane evidence they provide are the favorability ratings of their own subjects, which indicate that the feedback was not neutral, but, apparently, somewhat positive. Because of the tenuousness of the “objectively correct answer,” this study provides, at best, weak evidence in support of the hypothesis that dysphoric subjects are more realistic than nondepressed subjects. Perception

Self-Evaluation

Nelson and Craighead (1977) assigned dysphoric and nondepressed subjects to one of four experimental conditions: high (70%) reward, high (70%) punishment, low (30%) reward, or low (30%) punishment for performance on a chance-determined task that was presented as being skill-determined. The “performance feedback” was provided on only the first 40 trials of During the second block of trials, subjects were instructed to the experiment. evaluate their own performance and administer rewards (or punishments) to themselves according to their own standards. At first glance, one might be tempted to compare the subjects’ rates of self-reinforcement to the rates of experimenter-generated reinforcement received in the first half of the study to check for subjects’ self-reinforcement “accuracy.” Indeed, other reviewers of the literature have done so, and have concluded that in the low reward condition, the dysphoric subjects’ rate of self-reward was closer to the actual rate of reinforcement than that of the nondepressed subjects, who greatly “over-rewarded” themselves (Alloy & Abramson, 1988). However, close scrutiny of the experimental procedure reveals that these conclusions are not valid. Subjects were told to evaluate their own performance; they were not asked to match the prior rate of reinforcement. In fact, as Nelson and Craighead state, “The instructions were worded to ameliorate as much as possible Self-reinforcement.

Depressive

Realism

571

the effects of prior external feedback” (p. 383, emphasis added). Therefore, the experimenter-generated rate is not a valid measure of the correct answer in this self-reinforcement task. Moreover, a rational subject might expect that he or she has improved on the task since the first block of trials, and thereby reward himor herself at a rate higher than the experimenter-generated rate of reinforcement. And, finally, because of the nature of the task (on every trial there was more than one acceptable answer), there was no objectively correct answer against which to compare the subjects’ rates of self-reward and self-punishment. Another self-reinforcement study was reported by Rozensky, Rehm, Pry, and Roth (1977). Highly depressed patients, mildly depressed patients, and nondepressed medical patients performed a verbal recognition memory task. On each trial, after making their response, subjects were given the opportunity to adminthey also had the option to give no reister self-reward or self-punishment; sponse. All three groups of subjects over-rewarded themselves (gave themselves more rewards than the total number of correct responses), but the highly depressed patients did so to a lesser extent than the other two groups. This finding has been interpreted as providing support for the depressive realism hypothesis. However, it is worth noting that Rozensky et al. (1977) did not publish any statistical analyses concerning the accuracy with which subjects self-reinforced themselves; their primary interest was in relative differences between the depressed and nondepressed subjects in self-reinforcing behavior. Thus, any conclusions about accuracy can only be made by inspecting the group means. But even if one does assume that the difference in the number of self-rewards between the depressed and nondepressed groups is a statistically reliable difference, there is a confound in that the high depression group gave more than three times as many “uncertain” responses as did the nondepressed group. Thus, in principle, one cannot make a valid comparison between the rates of self-reward and correct responses. In fact, if the “uncertain” responses are added to the self-rewards, the finding is reversed ! That is, if for the sake of argument, one were to assume that the “uncertain” responses were self-rewards instead, then an inspection of the means would reveal that the highly depressed patients over-rewarded themselves to a slightly greater extent than did the nondepressed controls. Therefore, although this design potentially could have yielded evidence germane to the depressive realism hypothesis, the interpretation of the results is ambiguous due to the lack of analyses concerning subjects’ accuracy and the confound introduced into the study by the presence of an “uncertain” response category. as the objective standard. One of the most frequently cited studies in the depressive realism literature was reported by Lewinsohn, Mischel, Chaplin, and Barton (1980). Depressed patients, nondepressed patients, and nondepressed controls participated in a 45-minute group interaction. Immediately following the interaction, subjects rated themselves on a number of dimensions pertaining to social skills. These ratings were then compared to ratings made by trained observers. The depressed subjects’ ratings were closer approximations of how the observers saw them than were the nondepressed subjects’ ratings. Specifically, the nondepressed subjects rated themselves more positively than did the observers. This has been cited as an example of depressive realism (e.g., Ruehlman et al., 1985; Taylor & Brown, 1988). However, as Alloy and Abramson (1988) state, “ ‘objective’ observers’ . . . ratObserver-evaluations

572

R. Ackermann

and R. .J. DeRubei.c

ings of depressed and nondepressed subjects . . [do not] necessarily constitute a measure of objective accuracy or reality” (p. 240). As they explain, this is because observers may be subject to their own cognitive biases. Moreover, there is evidence indicating that trained “judges,” such as those used in the Lewinsohn et al. (1980) study, are prone to be especially critical (see Gotlib & Meltzer, 1987). Thus, as other authors have suggested, it may be the case that the judges’ harsh ratings simply happened to coincide with the depressed subjects’ low self-ratings (Coyne & Gotlib, 1983; Gotlib & Meltzer, 1987). Finally, the subjects’ task was not to guess how the observers would rate them, but how they themselves thought they had performed. Thus, the Lewinsohn et al. (1980) study, and other studies that have used observers’ ratings as the objective standard (e.g., Roth & Rehm, 1980) cannot be brought to bear on the issues of distortion or realism. Self-Other A consistent finding within the current social cognition literature is that (nondepressed) individuals tend to display a self-enhancing (or optimistic) bias toward 1980). That is, subjects tend themselves as compared to others (e.g., Weinstein, to give more favorable evaluations of themselves than they do of others in many domains (e.g., personality attributes, abilities). Although when an individual subject claims to be, for example, smarter than the average person, it may in fact be true, when most members of a group make such a claim, the group is demonstrating a self-enhancing bias. (A parallel argument can be made for the existence of a self-deprecating or pessimistic bias, when most members of a particular group evaluate themselves negatively relative to the average person of that group.) Thus, studies in which nondepressed subjects, but not depressed subjects, exhibit a self-enhancing bias can be said to support the depressive realism hypothesis; studies in which depressed subjects, but not nondepressed subjects, demonstrate a self-deprecating bias offer evidence inconsistent with the hypothesis. However, not all studies in which subjects make judgments about themselves and others provide evidence pertaining to the depressive realism hypothesis. In several such studies, it is not clear which group, if any, is displaying a bias. For example, in Ahrens, Zeiss, and Kanfer (1988), dysphoric and nondepressed Stanford University students were asked to rate to what extent they and “the typical Stanford student” could perform 24 specific behaviors. Among the 24 behaviors were activities such as smiling and avoiding feelings of social inadequacy, inferiority, or incompetence. They found that nondepressed subjects made more favorable judgments for themselves than for their peers, whereas depressed subjects made similar self- and other-judgments. On the face of it, this result appears to indicate that the nondepressed subjects exhibited a self-enhancing bias whereas dysphoric subjects did not. However, it must be noted that many of the items concern depression-relevant behaviors; that is, it is likely that the dysphoric individuals experienced greater-than-average difficulty performing many of the 24 behaviors. Moreover, the nondepressed sample in this study was particularly nondepressed; the average Beck Depression Inventory score (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961) in this group was 1.8. Thus, it is likely that these nondepressed individuals

Depressive

Realism

573

were particularly good at performing these depression-relevant behaviors. To some extent, subjects were selected on the basis of these abilities; thus, it is likely that they did perform them better than the average Stanford student. Therefore, because of the depression-relevant nature of the items, and the selective composition of the nondepressed group, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the nondepressed subjects were accurate when they made discrepant self-other judgments. Thus, this study and other similar studies (e.g., Cracker, Alloy, & Kayne, 1987; Pietromonaco & Markus, 1983; Tabachnik, Cracker, & Alloy, 1983) do not provide clear evidence regarding depressive realism.

STUDIES

DEPRESSIVE REALISM - EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: THAT ALLOW FOR AN ASSESSMENT OF ACCURACY

In this part of the review, we will discuss evidence garnered in studies that, arguably, contain a “ground truth” against which to compare subjects’ responses. We consider studies that used dysphoric subjects separately from those that used although dysphoria is worthy of study in its own depressed patients because, right, it cannot be assumed that findings derived using this population generalize to a clinically depressed population. In fact, in other research concerning depressive cognition, dysphoric perform quite differently on Kuiper & Derry, 1982). Contingency

and severely depressed individuals appear to laboratory tasks (e.g., Derry & Kuiper, 1981;

Judgments

Dysphoria. Alloy and Abramson (1979) developed this paradigm to test predictions derived from the learned helplessness model of depression. From the model, which postulates that depressed individuals have a generalized expectation that their responses do not exert control over environmental outcomes (e.g., Maier 8c Seligman, 1976), it was predicted that depressed subjects would underestimate the degree of contingency between outcomes and their responses. To test this prediction, Alloy and Abramson (1979) presented dysphoric and nondepressed subjects with one of a series of contingency problems that varied in degree of contingency. The subjects’ task was to estimate the degree of contingency between their responses (pressing or not pressing a button) and an enthey vironmental outcome (onset of a green light).3 In this series of experiments, found, contrary to their expectations, that dysphoric subjects' judgments of contingency were rather accurate. Nondepressed subjects, in contrast, exhibited an “illusion of control” when they actually had no control, if the green light onset “We classify the contingency judgment paradigm as containing an objective standard of comparison. However, we recognize that this classification is questionable for several reasons. In these studies, the following metric is used as the index of the objective degree of contingency: the conditional probability of the outcome given the occurrence of one response minus the conditional probability of the outcome given the occurrence of the other response. However, this metric is only one of many possible metrics used to calculate contingency and is not the most widely used formula (see Cracker, 1981). In addition, there is some question as to whether the subjects in these studies clearly understand the metric that is used (see Bloomgarden, 1985, for a critique of the instructions given to subjects in the contingency judgment studies).

574

R. Ackermann

and R. J. DeRubeis

was frequent (75%75% condition, experiment 2) or was associated with success (winning money, experiment 3). Also, nondepressed subjects underestimated their control when they actually had 50% control, if the absence of the green light onset was associated with failure {losing money, experiment 4). As Alloy and Ahramson (1988) point out, the nondepressed subjects’ illusions of control appeared to be due to difficulty or bias in interpreting the information needed to make an accurate judgment, rather than due to a difficulty in perceiving the information itself. That is, the nondepressed subjects, like the dysphoric subjects, accurately judged the conditional probabilities of green light onset given pressing and not pressing, yet they gave incorrect c0ntingenc.y estimates. Numerous other studies, using the basic contingency judgment paradigm, have since been conducted. Many findings first reported in Alloy and Abramson (1979) have been replicated (Alloy & Abramson, 1982; Alloy, Abramson, & Kossman, 1985, experiment 3; Alloy, Abramson, & Viscusi, 1981, no mood induction condition; Benassi & Mahler, experiment I ; Martin, Alloy, & Abramson, 1984, self-condition; Vazquez, 1987, experiments 1, 2, and 3) and extended to show that dysphoric subjects are accurate across a wide range of conditions (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1982; VTazquez, 1987; but see Bryson, Doan, & Pasquali, 1984; and Ackermann, 1988, for failures to replicate the basic finding). Several studies have explored the pervasiveness of the phenomenon. Kesults have indicated that dysphoric subjects are not always more accurate than nondeMartin, Alloy, and Abramson (1984), pressed subjects in judging contingency. “win” problem (see Alloy & Abramson, 1979, experiusing a noncontingency ment 3), asked subjects to estimate either how much control they themselves had (self-condition) or how much control a confederate had (other-condition) over the onset of a green light. Within the self-condition, the basic contingency judgment finding was replicated: the dysphoric subjects were more accurate than the the dysphoric and the nondepressed subjects. However, in the other-condition, female nondepressed subjects tended to overestimate the amount of control the confederate had (the male nondepressed subjects judged it accurately). In another study, Benassi and Mahler (1985) found that, whereas dysphoric subjects judged accurately that they had little control over a noncontingent, high frequency outcome when they performed the task unobserved (as in Alloy & Abramson, 19’79, experiment 2). the dysphoric subjects provided higher (less accurate) estimates of control than did the nondepressed subjects when the task was performed in the presence of an observer. Similarly, Vazquez (1987) found that, although dysphoric subjects were quite accurate at judging how much control they had over whether positive- or negative-content (self-referent) sentences appeared on a computer screen when they actually had 25% control, they overestimated their control over negative-content sentences in a tloncontingency condition. Nondepressed subjects, on the other hand, overestimated their control over positive-content sentences, irrespective of how much control they actually had. In general, however, evidence from the contingency judgment studies indicates that dysphoric subjects are more accurate in judging contingency (especially noncontingency) than their nondepressed counterparts.

Depressive

Depression.

No

contingency

judgment

Reali.sm

studies

575

have been

reported

using

de-

pressed patients. Recall of Evaluative

lnforma tion

their Buchwald (1977) p rovided subjects with feedback concerning performance on a learning task after every trial. On average, subjects under-recalled the number of correct responses they had given. In addition, the more dysphoric subjects were, the more they underestimated the number of trials on which they had been reinforced. Similarly, Kuiper (1978) presented evidence suggesting that dysphoric individuals tend to underestimate how much reinforcement they receive. He provided subjects with reinforcement on either 20%, 55Y O, or 80% of the trials on a wordassociation task. In general, dysphoric subjects estimated that they had given fewer correct responses than nondepressed subjects; the difference between the groups’ estimates was statistically significant in the 55% condition. Furthermore, although Kuiper did not report analyses concerning the accuracy of the estimates, inspection of the means in the 55% condition reveals that the dysphoric individuals, on average, underestimated their correct responses, whereas the nondepressed individuals were quite accurate in their estimates. Dykman et al. (1989) gave subjects feedback, ranging from positive to neutral to negative, on a dot-estimation task. Subjects were then asked to recall how much of each type of feedback they had received. Although there was no difference overall in the accuracy of the two groups’ recall, in one experimental condition the dysphoric subjects were negatively biased in their recall. Nelson and Craighead (1977), as described earlier, provided dysphoric and nondepressed subjects with either high or low rates of reward or punishment concerning their performance on a word-recognition task. After the first block of trials, subjects recalled their rate of reward (or punishment). In the low punishment condition, dysphoric subjects were accurate in their recall, whereas the nondepressed subjects underestimated how much punishment they had received. However, in the high reward condition, the nondepressed subjects were accurate, whereas the dysphoric subjects under-recalled the amount of reward they had received. The mixed pattern of results in this study underscores the need to sample a wide range of experimental conditions in studies of depressive realism. Kennedy and Craighead (1988) explored the possibility that differences in recall found between dysphoricldepressed and nondepressed individuals are due to the elevated anxiety typically found in dysphoric or depressed people. They found that nondepressed-nonanxious subjects underestimated how much negative feedback they had received on a mental maze task. Both groups of anxious subjects (dysphoric-anxious and nondepressed-anxious), on the other hand, were accurate in their recall of negative feedback. The authors concluded that the dysphoric subjects’ greater accuracy in their recall of negative feedback may have been due to the heightened anxiety typically found in dysphoria rather than to dysphoria per se. However, heightened anxiety was probably not related to dysphoric subjects’ under-recalling of positive feedback, since only the dysDysphoria.

575

R. Ackermann

and R. ,J. DeRubeis

phoric group in this study underestimated received. Interestingly, Dennard and Hokanson dysphoric subjects under-recalled rate (25%) of positive feedback, they received both low and high

how much (1986)

positive

found

that

positive feedback when mildly dysphoric subjects rates of positive feedback.

feedback whereas

they had mode1-ntely

they received a low were accurate when Further, the nonde-

pressed subjects overestimated how much positive feedback they had received when it was presented at a high rate (75%). These findings support the view that not only can depression level affect whether distortion occurs, but it can affect whether the distortion, if present, is in a positive or negative direction. The results from “recall of feedback” studies, then, indicate that although nondepressed subjects sometimes distort their recall of feedback in a positive direction, the more consistent finding is that dysphoric individuals negatively distort their recall of evaluative feedback. Depression. Gotlib (1983) had depressed and nondepressed psychiatric inpatients and nondepressed hospital employees engage in a dyadic interaction with a stranger. He provided subjects with neutral interpersonal feedback based ostensibly on an observation of the interaction. The feedback was in the form of 13 Likert-type scales. He then tested subjects’ incidental memory for the feedback by asking them to fill out a blank feedback form as theirs had been filled out. The depressed patients recalled the feedback as considerably (and significantly) more negative than was actually the case. On the other hand, the two nondepressed groups recalled the feedback relatively accurately. Therefore, the results of this study are inconsistent with the depressive realism hypothesis. In another study, Gotlib (1981) administered a verbal recognition task to depressed and nondepressed psychiatric inpatients and nondepressed controls. Subjects were required to administer rewards and punishments to themselves on a trial-by-trial basis. The depressed patients recalled giving themselves fewer reinforcements and more punishments than they actually had, whereas the nondepressed subjects’ recall of self-reinforcement and self-punishment did not differ significantly from what they had delivered to themselves. Hence, subjects’ recall was negatively distorted, whereas the nondepressed call was accurate. Thus, the two studies back, like most of those of depressive distortion. phoric

subjects,

the depressed subjects’ re-

examining depressed patients’ recall of evaluative feedthat looked at dysphoric subjects’ recall, found evidence In recall paradigms, then, it is the depressed and dys-

by and large,

who have evidenced

distortion.

Self-Evaluation Dobson (1989) asked nondepressed subjects to interact with either After the interaction, subjects completed dysphoric or nondepressed “targets.” social impact measures concerning how they were feeling and how they responded to the target. The targets, meanwhile, were asked to complete the identical forms, but according to how they thought the subjects were feeling and thinking about them. Although there was no difference in the degree to which Dysphoria.

the targets were accepted, dysphoric targets underestimated the acceptance they had received. The nondepressed targets’ ratings were relatively accurate. Thus, this study provides evidence inconsistent with the claim that dysphoric individu-

Depressive

577

Realism

als make more accurate judgments than nondepressed study, however, failed to find a difference in accuracy nondepressed subjects (Strack & Coyne, 1983). Depression.

No self-evaluation

studies

of depressed

individuals. A similar between dysphoric and

patients

have been

reported.

Self-Other Dysphoria.

Wenzlaff

and

Berman

(1988)

provided

dysphoric

and

nondepressed

college students with two computer printouts, one of which purportedly contained the results of a personality test they had taken; the other ostensibly contained the results of an anonymous individual’s test. The test results had been The subjects’ task was to rate the fadesigned to be equal in favorableness. vorability of the test results on a six-point scale. Nondepressed subjects judged the feedback to be more favorable when it was about themselves than when it was about others. Dysphoric subjects were more evenhanded in their judgments; that is, they judged vorable. Thus, this is associated with judgments. Alloy and Ahrens

the self- and other-relevant information as being equally fafinding provides support for the hypothesis that dysphoria a relative absence of self-enhancing biases in self-other (1987)

p rovided

dysphoric

and nondepressed

students

with

information about 10 hypothetical other students and asked them to use the information (e.g., SAT scores, GPA) to predict the likelihood of a positive or negative academic outcome for these students. They also asked subjects to provide the same information about themselves, and to make predictions about their own academic outcomes. Relative to predictions about other students identical to themselves on the predictor variables, the nondepressed subjects overestimated their own probability of success and underestimated their own probability of failhowever, generated similar self- and other-judgure. The dysphoric students, ments, thereby not displaying the optimistic bias exhibited by the nondepressed students. Campbell (1986) asked dysphoric and nondepressed students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to rate the extent to which they agree/disagree with seven opinion statements (e.g., “the bible is God’s word . ..“) and their competence at each of seven abilities (e.g., “taking good notes in class”) using Likerttype scales. Subjects were then asked to provide consensus judgments (i.e., estimates of the percentage of other UBC students who provided ratings both similar and dissimilar to their own). Unlike studies with similar designs reviewed above (e.g., Ahrens et al., 1988; Tabachnik et al., 1983), this experiment used items not particularly relevant to depression, as well as a more representative sample of nondepressed subjects. In addition, the actual percentage of subjects endorsing each level of competence and agreement was used as an objective standard against which to compare subjects’ consensus judgments. Campbell found that, whereas dysphoric subjects were not more accurate in judging consensus than nondepressed subjects, they were less likely to display the self-enhancing bias exhibited by the nondepressed subjects. Furthermore, the more dysphoric a subject was, the less bias he or she displayed. Two other studies required that subjects make self- and other-judgments about a task that either they themselves performed or that someone else performed in their presence. In Golin et al. (1977), subjects rated how confident they were

578

that

R. Ackermann

either

they

or the

croupier

and R. J. DeRubeis

would

obtain

one

of seven

“winning”

dice

re-

sults. The nondepressed subjects exhibited an optimistic bias in that they provided significantly higher confidence ratings in the self-condition than in the croupier-condition. The dysphoric subjects, on the other hand, displayed a pessimistic bias as they gave significantly higher confidence ratings in the croupiercondition than they did in the self-condition. Similar results were also obtained by Martin et al. (1984) using a 0% control problem. Although the objective amount of control was the same in both the self- and other-conditions, neither group provided evenhanded self-other judgments. That is, nondepressed subjects attributed more control to themselves than to the confederate, whereas dysphoric subjects attributed less control to themselves than to the confederate. Thus, both Golin et al. (1977) and Martin et al. (1984) provide mixed evidence concerning the depressive realism hypothesis, as the nondepressed subjects exhibited a self-enhancing jects displayed a self-deprecating (other-enhancing)

bias and the dysphoric bias.

sub-

Depression. Golin et al. (1979), using depressed and nondepressed inpatients, employed the paradigm developed in the Golin et al. (1977) study. As in Golin et al. (1977), the nondepressed subjects were more confident in the self-condition than in the croupier-condition; however, unlike the previous findings, depressed subjects yielded similar ratings in the self- and other-conditions. Therefore, this study provides evidence consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis in that the depressed subjects displayed an absence of the self-enhancing bias exhibited by nondepressed subjects. In a somewhat different type of self-other study, Hoehn-Hyde, Schlottman, and Rush (1982) showed clinically depressed patients and nondepressed nonpatients videotapes of an actor making positive, negative, and neutral comments. They asked the subjects to imagine that the comments were either directed at them (self-condition) or aimed at another person (other-condition). The subjects were then asked to rate each set of comments using several bipolar adjectives (e.g., good/bad). They found that the depressed group differed significantly from the nondepressed group on ratings of negative comments in the self-condition. Though the requisite interaction effect was not statistically significant (and the authors did not report a planned comparison of differences between self and other means), the patterns of the group means suggest that this difference resulted from a positive bias toward the self among the nondepressed subjects. That is, whereas the depressed patients gave nearly identical ratings of the negative comments in the two conditions, the nondepressed subjects gave a less negative rating in the self than in the other-condition. Thus, the self-other studies tell us that, at least under most of the conditions examined in the laboratory, depressed and dysphoric subjects are relatively free from the self-enhancing bias found in so many of the basic studies of the phenomenon (e.g., Weinstein, 1980). Although in two of the studies dysphoric subjects were found to distort in a self-deprecating manner (Golin et al., 1977; Martin et al., 1984), even those authors reported that nondepressed subjects exhibited self-enhancing biases under the same conditions. The remaining selfother studies yielded findings consistent only with the claim that depressed and dysphoric people are evenhanded in judgments of self versus others, while nondepressed

people

are self-enhancing.

Depressive

579

Realism

Studies That Contain an Assessment of Accuracy-Summary

Upon reviewing the depressive realism literature, two things become evident. First, although many (19) of the findings are consistent with the hypothesis, almost as many (14) are inconsistent with the hypothesis. Second, the findings appear to vary systematically as a function of the type of task used in the studies. Whereas in the contingency judgment and self-other studies the dysphoric subjects tend to be more accurate or evenhanded than the nondepressed subjects, in the recall of evaluative feedback studies the nondepressed subjects were more accurate than their depressed and dysphoric counterparts in every study but two. (As there is only one self-evaluation study reported to date, it remains to be seen whether this type of study will provide results consistent with the general pattern found in the literature.) MAKING Hypothesis

SENSE

1: Schematic

OF THE

LITERATURE-THREE

HYPOTHESES

Processing

Cognitive schemata are defined as organized representations of prior knowledge within a particular content domain that guide the processing of current incomThey are generalizations derived from past experience that ing information. serve to facilitate the perception, interpretation, and memory of relevant stimuli (Markus, 1977). Although relying on cognitive schemata generally leads to more efficient information processing when the schemata are good approximations of reality, they can also yield biased or distorted judgments when the information presented is inconsistent with the content of the schema. One possibility, then, is that depressed, dysphoric, and nondepressed subjects all engage in schematic processing. According to this view, the depressed and dysphoric individuals differ from the nondepressed primarily in the content of their particular self-schemata (Dykman et al., 1989). That is, whereas depressed or dysphoric individuals may be characterized as having negative self-schemata (Beck, 1967), nondepressed individuals are thought to possess positive self-schemata. One implication of this view would be that while neither group is characteristically biased or realistic, they can be either biased or realistic depending upon the relative match between their specific schemata and the incoming information (DeMonbreun SC Craighead, 1977; Dykman et al., 1989). If this were the case, it would account for the negative bias found in depressed and dysphoric subjects’ recall of evaluative information. The assumption here is that receiving positive feedback is inconsistent with the depressed person’s negative schemata; thus, bias occurs because the positive information is encoded and/or retrieved in light of their negative beliefs about themselves. The nondepressed subjects, on the other hand, confronted with feedback consistent with their positive beliefs, are accurate in their recall. The contingency judgment studies can also be viewed in this manner. Note that of the ten findings in which dysphoric subjects were more accurate than nondepressed subjects, eight were obtained using a 0% control problem, one using a 25% control problem, and the last using a 50% “lose” problem. Thus, these data may be indicating that dysphoric subjects are especially astute at recognizing and acknowledging the existence of an undesirable state of affairs (e.g., lack of control or contingency) consistent with their negative schemata. Their nonde-

580

pressed

I?. Ackermann

counterparts,

on the other

cause of their positive schemata. The findings generated by the

and R. J. DeKubeis

hand,

provide

self-other

positively

studies,

biased judgments

however,

are

not

be-

entirely

consistent with this view. Although nondepressed subjects do exhibit a self-enhancing bias, depressed subjects show no counterpart tendency to self-deprecate, as would be predicted by this view. Hypothesis

2: Severity/Level

of Depression

Hypothesis

It is noteworthy that of the studies that included an assessment of accuracy, all but four used dysphoric, not clinically depressed, subjects. Another posslbllity, then, is that as more studies including clinically depressed subjects are conducted, we may find that dysphoric individuals are more realistic than both severely depressed and nondepressed individuals. Indeed, it may be the case that just as mental health seems to be associated with positive illusions (see Taylor & Brown, 1988), severe depression may be associated with negative distortions, and dysphoria with a relative absence of such distortions or illusions. This is what Alloy and Abramson (1988) refer to as the “tragic perspective” (p. 255), and it has been suggested by other authors as well (e.g., Evans 8c Hollon, 1988; Kuehlman et al., 1985). It should be noted that this depiction of the relation between level of depression and realism provides an account for the discrepancy between experimental results consistent with the depressive realism hypothesis and clinical observations that depressed patients frequently distort reality in a negative manner (e.g., Beck, 1967). In addition, as described earlier, kanson (1986), using dysphoric subjects, provided suggestive of distress affects both whether distortion occurs and whether itive or negative examined these

Dennard and Hoevidence that level it will be in a pos-

direction. However, we are unaware of any single study that has issues using depressed, dysphoric, and nondepressed subjects.

It should be pointed out that hypotheses 1 and 2 are not inconsistent with one another. In fact, other researchers of depressive cognition have suggested that whereas depressed patients can be characterized as having predominantly negative self-schemata, and nondepressed people as having predominantly positive self-schemata, dysphoric individuals’ self-schemata appear to be mixed, containing relatively equal proportions of positive and negative material (e.g., Kuiper & Derry, 1982). Thus, it would be interesting to test both hypotheses parametriand nondepressed subjects to recall (or cally by asking depressed, dysphoric, make judgments about) information that varies in its positivity. However, even if evidence consistent with hypothesis 1 or 2 is obtained, neither view explains why the different

paradigms

Hypothesis 3: Depression Cognitive Distortions Another possibility such as “depression

yield different

patterns

of results.

as a Lack of a Motivational

Bias and the Presence

of

is that the picture is more complex than blanket statements involves the absence of distortion” imply. It may be that the

different methods employed in the study of depressive realism address different For instance, it is possible that the selftypes or sources of bias and distortion. serving biases observed in nondepressed subjects in the self-other and contingency studies are due to motivational factors (e.g., desire to maintain or enhance self-esteem), whereas the negative distortions found in depressed or dysphoric

581

Depressive Realism

subjects’ recall of evaluative information are due to cognitive factors (e.g., faulty information processing). Note that studies in which the nondepressed subjects have displayed an optimistic or self-serving bias have generally been those that require subjects to interpret information presented to them (e.g., “How favorable is this feedback/ “How confident are you about obtaining winning dice rolls?“; interaction?“; “How much control do you have?“), not simply to report what it was (e.g., “On how many trials did you receive positive feedback?“). In the former set of studies, subjects are confronted with situations in which their task is not to report or recall facts, but to provide their opinion about the facts. (Recall that in the contingency judgment studies, for example, the nondepressed subjects have no trouble recalling the conditional probabilities [e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 19791.) Thus, these studies show that when nondepressed subjects are asked to choose among various plausible interpretations of self-relevant information, they tend to select the more flattering ones, giving themselves the benefit of the doubt. One can speculate, as others have, that this self-serving bias is driven by a motivation to maintain self-esteem at an adaptive level (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1988; Bradley, 1978). According to this view, then, one characteristic of depression is a breakdown in this motivation to maintain self-esteem, resulting in the absence of optimistic biases. However, although having such a motivation may be why nondepressed subjects select rosy interpretations of self-relevant information, it does not necessarily follow that individuals motivated to see themselves in a good light would distort their perception and/or recall of facts to this end. As we have shown, in the one group of studies in which subjects are asked to recall facts of the matter, the nondepressed subjects are generally able to do so accurately. The depressed subjects, then, may be characterized not only by a breakdown in the motivation to maintain self-esteem, but also by a deficit in cognitive functioning such that they distort the facts when they recall evaluative information (e.g., Gotlib, 1981, 1983). At this point, these speculations are largely untested. A first step in testing the view that the different tasks are tapping into different sources of bias/distortion would be to demonstrate the divergent results we see in the literature using two different tasks within the context of one study. It would then be informative to observe the effect of manipulating subjects’ motivation on biases and distortions. If motivational factors underlie the nondepressed subjects’ self-serving bias, then the bias might be reduced by, for example, paying subjects for their accuracy in either a self-other or contingency judgment task. Likewise, if the distortions exhibited by the depressed subjects result from a breakdown of cognitive processes, such incentives should have no effect on depressed subjects’ recall of evaluative information. However, to say that depressed subjects have a cognitive deficit leads to a host of other questions concerning the nature and mechanism of such a deficit. Nonetheless, in our view this hypothesis is the most parsimonious of the three we have offered in that it best accounts for the disparate findings obtained with different types of tasks. RECOMMENDATIONS

FOR FUTURE

RESEARCH

The notion that depressed people are “sadder but wiser” (e.g., Alloy & Abram son, 1979) has presented a provocative challenge to cognitive theorists of depres-

582

R. Ackermann

and R. J. DeRubei\

sion who contend that depressed people distort and misinterpret information in an unrealistically negative manner (e.g., Beck, 1967; Seligman, 1975). We have shown that laboratory evidence for the claim that depressed individuals are accurate, nondistorting processors of information is not consistently obtained. Indeed, depressive realism appears to be a function of how it is measured. Previous reviewers (Alloy & Abramson, 1988) have come to different conclusions, we suggest, because they have not applied the criterion we believe to be essential (i.e., objective standard of comparison). Thus, these reviewers have utilized evidence that, we argue, is not truly germane to the depressive realism hypothesis. If evidence is to be gathered in future studies, the foregoing consideration should help guide experimental design. In addition, we recommend that more evidence be generated by studies using clinically depressed subjects. Although, to date, the four studies of depressed patients have provided evidence consistent with the pattern found in studies using dysphoric subjects, it remains an empirical question whether this pattern will withstand future investigation using depressed patients. A final feature that investigators should attend to in research on depressive realism is ecological validity. We are not alone in our concern that laboratory tests of judgmental accuracy tend to be pale reflections of the matters that clinicians believe depressed patients distort in daily life (A. T. Beck, personal communication, September, 1988; Coyne & Gotlib, 1983). However, we do recognize that there is a trade-off between the ecological validity of an experiment and whether it can be said to possess an objective standard of comparison. For example, how does one determine the accuracy of a judgment of self-worth, competence, or likability? Even so, we urge investigators of depressive realism to keep these considerations in mind when designing tests of the depressive realism hypothesis. Acknowledgements

-

John Sabini, Joseph this manuscript.

We would like to thank Jonathan Baron, Aaron Beck, David Haaga, Volpicelli, and Adrian Wells for their comments on earlier drafts of

REFERENCES Abramson, L. Y., Garber, J., Edwards, N. B., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1978). Expectancy changes in depression and schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Ps~cholo~, 87, 102-109. Ackermann, R. (1988). Is depreuwe realurn real? An ew+rical investigation. Unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. .4hrens, A. H., Zeiss, A. hl., & Kanfer, R. (1988). Depressive deficits in interpersonal standards, selfefficacy, and social comparison. Cognitivr Therapy and Research. 12, 53-67. Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1979). Judg ment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser? Journal ofExperzmental PAycho/og)‘: General, 108, 441-485. .411oy. I.. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1982). Learned helplessness, depression and the illusion of control. Journal of Persona& and Soctal Psycholoa, 42, 1114-I 126. Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1988). Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. In L. B. .4lloy (Ed.), Cogrutive processes in depression (pp. 223-265). New York: Guilford Press. Alloy, L. B., Abramson, L. Y., & Kossman, D. (1985). The judgment of predictability in depressed and nondepressed college students. In F. R. Brush & J. B. Overmier (Eds.), Affect, cond~tuvung and cogrution: Eunys on the determznant~ ofbehavior (pp. 229-246). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaurn. Alloy, L. B., Abramson, L. Y., 8s Viscusi, D. (1981). Induced mood and the illusion of control. Journal ofPerronalit~~ and Social Psycholoo, 41, 1129-l 140. Alloy, L. B., 8s Ahrens, A. H. (1987). Depression and pessimism for the future: Biased use of statistically relevant information in predictions for self versus others. Journal of Personality and Social Pqchology, 52, 366-378.

Depressive Realism

583

Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. New York: Harper & Row. Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive thema@ ofdepression. New York: Guilford Press. Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561-571. Benassi, V. A., & Mahler, H. I. M. (1985). Contingency judgments by depressed college students: Sadder but not always wiser. Journal of Personality and Social Psycholoa, 49, 1323-1329. Bloomgarden, A. (1985). The illusion of control over time: The effects of partially contingent and nonrontingent positive outcomes on active and passive subjects. Unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Bradley, G. W. (1978). Self-serving biases in the attribution process: A re-examination of the fact or fiction question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 56-71. Bryson, S. E., Doan, B. D., & Pasquali, P. (1984). Sadder but wiser: A failure to demonstrate that mood influences judgements of control. Canadian Journal ofBehavioral Science, 16, 107-l 17. Buchwald, A. M. (1977). Depressive mood and estimates of reinforcement frequency. Journal of ilbnormal

Psychology, 86, 443-446.

Campbell, J. D. (1986). Similarity and uniqueness: The effects of attribute type, relevance, and individual differences in self-esteem and depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychologlj, 50, 281-294. Coyne, J. C., & Gotlib, I. H. (1983). The role of cognition in depression: A critical appraisal. Psycholo&al

Bulletin,

94, 472-505.

Cracker, J. (1981). Judgment of covariation by social perceivers. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 272-292. Cracker, J., Alloy, L. B., & Kayne, N. T. (1988). Attributional style, depression, and perceptions of consensus for events. Journal of Persona&y and Soczal Psychology, 54, 840-846. Dahlstrom, W. G., & Welsh, G. S. (1960). An MMPI handbook: A guide to use in clinical practice and research. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. DeMonbreun, B. G., & Craighead, W. E. (1977). Distortion of perception and recall of positive and neutral feedback in depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 3, 31 l-329. Dennard, D. O., & Hokanson, J. E. (1986). Performance on two cognitive tasks by dysphoric and nondysphoric students. Cognztzve Therapy and Research, 10, 337-386. Derry, P. A., & Kuiper, N. A. (1981). Schematic processing and self-reference in clinical depression. Journal

of Abnormal

Psychology, 90, 286-297.

R. J., & Beck, A. T. (1988). Cognitive therapy. In K. S. Dobson (Ed.), Handbook ofcognitive-behavioral therapies. New York: Guilford Press. Dobson, K. S. (1989). Real and perceived interpersonal responses to subclinically anxious and depressed targets. Cognitive Therapr and Research, 13, 37-47. Dobson, K., & Franche, R. L. (1989). A conceptual and empirical review of the depressive realism hypothesis. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 21, 419-433. Dobson, K. S., & Shaw, B. F. (1981). The effect of self-correction on cognitive distortions in depression. Cognztive Therapy and Research, 5, 391-403. Dykman, B. M., Abramson, L. Y., Alloy, L. B., & Hartlage, S. (1989). Processing ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and non-depressed college students: Schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism. Journal of Personality and Social Psycho&, 56, 43 l-445. Dykman, B. M., & Volpicelli, J. R. (1983). Depression and negative processing of evaluative feedback. Cognztive Therapy and Research, 7, 485-498. Evans, M. D., & Hollon, S. D. (1988). Patterns of personal and causal inference: Implications for the cognitive therapy of depression. In L. B. Alloy (Ed.), Cognitive processes in depresston (pp. 223-265). New York: Guilford Press. Freud, S. (1917/1957). Mourning and melancholia. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The complete psychological work_s of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth. Golin, S., Terrel, F., &Johnson, B. (1977). Depression and the illusion of control. Journal of Abnormal DeRubeis,

Psychology, 86, 440-442.

Golin, S., Terrel, F., Weitz, J., & Drost, P. L. (1979). The illusion of control among depressed patients. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88, 454-457. Gotlib, I. H. (1981). Self-reinforcement and recall: Differential deficits in depressed and nondepressed psychiatric patients. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 521-530. Gotlib, I. H. (1983). Perception and recall of interpersonal feedback: Negative bias in depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 7, 399-412. Gotlib, I. H., & Meltzer, S. J. (1987). Depression and the perception of social skill in dyadic interaction. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 11, 41-54.

584

R. Ackermnnn

and R. J. DeRuheis

Hoehn-Hyde, D., Schlottman, R. S., & Rush, A. J, (1982). Perception of social interactions in depressed psychiatric patients. Journnl of Cotzsulting nnd Clinical Psyholo~, 50, 209-212. Kendall, P. C., Hollon, S. D., Beck, A. T., Hammen, C. L., 8c Ingram, R. E. (1987). Issues and recommendations regarding use of the Beck Depression Inventory. Cogr&zv, Therapy and Research, 11, 289-299. Kennedy, R. E., 8c Craighead, W. E. (1988). Differential effects of depression and anxiety on recall of feedback in a learning task. Behavior Therapy, 19, 437-454. Klein, D. C., 8; Seligman, M. E. P. (1976). Reversal of performance deficits and perceptual deficits in learned helplessness and depression. ]ournn! of,4bnormal P.sycholo~, 85, 1 l-26. Kuiper, N. -4. (1978). Depression and causal attributions for success and failure. Jourwzl of Penonnlit~ and

Socral

Psychology,

36, 236-246.

Kuiper. N. rl.. & Derry, P. A. (1982). Depressed and nondepressed content self-reference in mild depressives. Journal of Personality, 50, 67-W. Lewinsohn, P. M., Mischel, W., Chaplin, W., & Barton, R. (1980). Social competence and depression: The role of illusory self-perceptions? ,]oumnl ofAbnormal Psyhology, 89, 203-2 12. hlaier, S. F., 8c Seligman, M. E. P. (1976). Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Expenmentnl

Markus, Social

Psychology:

General,

H. (1977).

Self-schemata

Ps~cholo~,

35, 63-78.

105,

3-46.

and processing

information

about the self. ~]ownul of Personnlzt);

and

Martin, D. J., Abramson, L. Y., & Alloy, L. B. (1984). The illusion of control for self and others in depressed and nondepressed college students. Journal of Personality and Soczal Psyhologv, 46, 125136. Miller, D. T., & Rioretti, M. 51. (1988). The causal attributions of depressives: Self-serving or selfdisserving? In L. B. Alloy (Ed.), Cog&w processes VI depression. New York: Guilford Press. Filler, W’. R., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1973). Depression and the perception of reinforcement. ,Journal of Ab~~ormnl Psycholo
82, 213-225.

Miller, WT. R., Seligman, Rl. E. P., & Kurlander, H. 51. (1975). Learned helplessness, depression, and anxiety. .lo~n~nl of Nwuous and Mental Disense, 161, 347-357. Nelson, R. E., & Craighead, W. E. (1977). Selective recall of positive and negative feedback, selfcontrol behaviors and depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 86, 379-388. Pietromonaco, P. R., 8s Markus, H. (1983). The nature of negative thoughts in depression. ,]ownal of Prrsonnltty

and Social

Psychology,

48,

i99-807.

Raps, C. S., Reinhard, K. E., Peterson, C., .4bramson, L. Y., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1982). .4ttributional style among depressed patients. Journal ofAbnormalPsycholog, 91, 102-108. Roth, D., & Rehm, L. P. (1980). Relationships among self-monitoring processes, memory, and depression. Cognztiue Therapy nnd Research, 4, 149-157. Rozensky, R. H., Rehm. L. P., Pry, G., & Roth, D. (1977). Depression and self-reinforcement behavior in hospitalized patients. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Expenmental Psychlatv, 8, 35-38. Ruehhnan, L. S., West, S. G., 8r Pasahow, R. J. (1985). Depression and evaluative schemata. ,]ournal of Personality,

53, 46-92.

Seligman, VI. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depresszon, Freeman. Strack, S., & Coyne, J. C. (1983). Social confirmation Journal

of Persona&y

and

Social

Psycholoa,

44,

development,

and

of dysphoria:

death.

Shared

San

Francisco:

and private

W. H.

reactions.

798-806.

Tabachnik, N., Cracker, J., & Alloy, L. B. (1983). Depression, social comparison, and the false-consensus effect. Journal of Personality and Socuzl Psychology, 45, 688-699. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Ps~chologicnl Bulletin, 103, 193-210. Vazquez, C. V. (1987). Judgment of contingency: Cognitive biases in depressed and nondepressed subjects. Journal of Personal@ and Social PsycholoQ, 52, 419-431. Vestre, N. D., & Caulfield, B. P. (1986). Perception of neutral personality descriptions by depressed and nondepressed subjects. Cogmtwe Therapy and Research, 10, 3 1-36. Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Jourmzl of Personality and Social Psychology,

Wenzlaff,

39, 806-820.

R. M., & Berman, J. S. (1988). Depression and judgments of selj-enhancement? (manuscript submitted for publication).

of self and others:

Received Accepted

ObjectivlQ

November September

at the cost

27, 1989 7, 1990