Testing for Depressive Realism in a Clinically Depressed Sample

Shruti Venkatesh*, Michelle L. Moulds, Christopher J. Mitchell

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

<jats:p>The depressive-realism effect refers to a phenomenon in which depressed individuals are more realistic at assessing the relationship between two events than non-depressed individuals. Recent evidence suggests that the depressive realism hypothesis is weaker than first thought. Thus, we sought evidence for depressive-realism under conditions that we hypothesised would maximise the effect. We tested a clinically depressed sample of participants who were administered a rumination induction. Twenty-eight clinically depressed and 39 non-depressed participants were randomly allocated to either a rumination condition (focused on the causes, consequences, and meaning of their mood) or a distraction condition (focused on external objects/events such as a classroom). Participants then completed a contingency task in which there was no relationship between their responses and an outcome, and they were asked to make a judgment of how much control they had over an outcome. Both groups and conditions did not differ in their judgments of control; participants in all conditions showed a non-normative judgment of control. The depressive-realism effect was not observed in this study, even when depressed participants were encouraged to ruminate. Rather, the present study clearly demonstrates the robustness of the illusion of control.</jats:p>
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)108-122
Number of pages0
JournalBehaviour Change
Volume35
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2018

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