Coherence and specificity of information-processing biases in depression and social phobia.

Research has not resolved whether depression is associated with a distinct information-processing bias, whether the content of the information-processing bias in depression is specific to themes of loss and sadness, or whether biases are consistent across the tasks most commonly used to assess attention and memory processing. In the present study, participants diagnosed with major depression, social phobia, or no Axis I disorder, completed several information-processing tasks assessing attention and memory for sad, socially threatening, physically threatening, and positive stimuli. As predicted, depressed participants exhibited specific biases for stimuli connoting sadness; social phobic participants did not evidence such specificity for threat stimuli.

Sadness and amusement reactivity differentially predict concurrent and prospective functioning in major depressive disorder.

Depressed individuals often fail to react to emotionally significant stimuli. The significance of this pattern of emotional dysregulation in depression is poorly understood. In the present study, depressed and nondepressed participants viewed standardized neutral, sad, fear, and amusing films; and experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses to each film were assessed.

Behavioral activation and inhibition systems and the severity and course of depression.

Theorists have proposed that depression is associated with abnormalities in the behavioral activation (BAS) and behavioral inhibition (BIS) systems. In particular, depressed individuals are hypothesized to exhibit deficient BAS and overactive BIS functioning. Self-reported levels of BAS and BIS were examined in 62 depressed participants and 27 nondepressed controls.

A construct validation study of the Response Styles Questionnaire Rumination Scale in participants with a recent-onset major depressive episode.

This study examined the construct validity and clinical utility of S. Nolen-Hoeksema's (1991) Response Styles Questionnaire (RSQ) Rumination scale. Eighty-eight participants with recent-onset major depressive episodes were assessed and followed for 6 months, using semistructured interviews and self-report inventories.

Psychosocial predictors of the short-term course and outcome of major depression: a longitudinal study of a nonclinical sample with recent-onset episodes.

Three variables have been hypothesized to play important roles in prolonging the course of depressive episodes: a ruminative response style, significant interpersonal relationships, and childhood adversity. The authors examined whether these variables predicted the short-term course of major depressive disorder (MDD). Participants (n = 84) were college students with a recent-onset major depressive episode.