depressive realism

Question 1

seligman & maier (1967)

Answer 1

• dogs
• escape training
• one side box occassionally electrocuted, could escape this by jumping over barrell
• how often did they try to escape
• 3 groups: no shock - no training what so ever; escapable group - training in a different piece of apparatus; inescapable group - sequence of shock from escapable group matched onto inescapable group. shock emissions happened to escapable group then happened to this group
• control & escapable were pretty good at learning to jump over barrier in training
• inescapable group were not as good at learning

Question 2

learned helplessness training in animals/humans induces?

maier & seligman (2016)

Answer 2

1. low mood
2. loss of interest
3. weight loss
4. sleep problems
5. fatigue
6. worthlessness
7. poor concentration
8. psychomotor problems

8 of 9 DSM symptoms of major depressive disorder

Question 3

seligman (1975) & helplessness theory

Answer 3

• depressed ppl:
• generalised expectancies of independence between their responses (-R) and outcomes (O)
• believe they are powerless to control the world

Question 4

contingency

rescorla (1968) from dickinson (1980)

Answer 4

• rats presented with tone
• probability of shock being delivered n the absence of tone is very fearful
• when there’s more absence of tones, there is less fear of the tone despite getting shocked 40% when there’s a tone
• proability of shock expect more learning when there’s less absence

Question 5

allan (1980) and contingency

Answer 5

• defined in terms of responses and outcomes (instrumental learning)
• contingency = relationship between two binary events
• 1 = perfect relationship
• 0 = no relationship
• -1 = behaviour actually reduces outcome

Question 6

alloy & abramson (1979)

depressive realism

Answer 6

• undergrads divided into depressed & non-depressed
• sat in a room in front of a box that had a bulb which could illuminate green (O - outcome) or not (noO), & a button which they could press (R - response) or not press (noR)
• ppts asked to work out how much control they have over the green light. told to sometimes press, & other times not to press the button
• contingency was set to 0
• non-depressed ppts show an illusion of control
• depressed ppts were not fooled, overall level of control is low (learning more appropriately when you’re sad

Question 7

motivational theory on depressive realism

Answer 7

• non-depressed ppl engage in behs to enhance their self-esteem
• in particular, distort reality, in an optimistic way
• non-depressed ppl: overestimate their control over desired beh, underestimate their control over undesired beh
• depressed ppl don’t - they have a specific motivation to preserve self-esteem

Question 8

meta-analysis on depressive realism

moore & fresco (2012)

Answer 8

• adequate levels of intra-class corr between rates/coders
• dysphoric/depressed group tended to be biased optimistically but this result was less than a small effect
• non-dysphorics also illustrated an optimistic bias, but to a greater extent
• studies that do & don’t compare against objective reality show DR effects
• studies using self-report more likely to find DR than those that used clinical interview
• almost identical effect sizes for studies low & high on external validity

Question 9

impact of instructions in depressive realism task

matute (1996)

Answer 9

• escape - 50 trials with a 90dB noise, had to escape aversive noise by pressing the space bar
• beep - 50 trials with a quieter beep, had to get the beep to play again within 1s by pressing space bar
• within each group manipulated instructions (4 groups in total)
• analytical group - encouraged to respond on 50% of trials to assess their control
• naturalistic group - encouraged to obtain the outcome
• asked to judge amount of control they had over
• lower when given analytic training - makes sense as they were told to respond less, significantly

Question 10

blanco et al. (2012) conclusions

Answer 10

• depression is a distal cause of realism. The more proximal cause of realism is response probability
• illusion of control protects ppl to optimistically believe that they are able to control certain aspects of their life
• clinical interventions that increase patient activity & responding may help develop these healthy, optimistic illusions

Question 11

the ITI hypothesis

msetfi et al. (2015)

Answer 11

• ITI: long (15s) or short (3s)
• depression: depressed or not depressed
• outcome density: high [P(O)=.75] or low [P(O)=.15]
• long ITI: happy ppts show illusion of control, depressed ppts don’t show illusion of control (show depressive realism)
• short ITI: illusion of control has been abolished

Question 12

morrow & nolen-hoeksema (1990)

Answer 12

• depressed ppl spend time ruminating about their feelings & symptoms
• perhaps att is diverted during ITI in depressed ppl
• don’t use info provided by ITI, or (background context) to evaluate the relationship between noR and noO

Question 13

msetfi et al. (2009)

Answer 13

• AX continuous performance task
• letters presented sequentially on a computer screen
• have to respond when they see “X” (target) - only after “A” (context)
• look at errors on distractor trials: A-Y and B-X
• if context is well processed: A-Y errors>B-X errors
• if context is poorly processed: A-Y errors<B-X errors
• mean proportion of errors in both depressed and non-depressed ppts
• mediator of illusion of control is extent to which you are able to process context