Performance on two cognitive tasks by dysphoric and nondysphoric students

Abstract

Mildly and moderately dysphoric undergraduates and normal controls participated in two tasks: estimating the percentage of reinforcements they had received on an ambiguous laboratory task and recognition of negative and positive adjectives after a 2-week presentation-test interval. The results indicated that moderately dysphoric subjects responded in a more negative direction than normals on both tasks; however, they displayed "distorted" processing on only one measure (underestimation of reinforcement rate in a low reinforcement condition). In contrast, the nondysphoric group displayed a positive, self-enhancing bias on virtually all the measures. The results are discussed in relation to theories of depression, and with regard to problems in assessing cognitive processes. © 1986 Plenum Publishing Corporation.