Stability and Severity Parameters of Depressive Self-Schema Responding

Abstract

Negative self-schemas have been considered as a possible mechanism of the apparent information-processing biases of depressives. Experiments involving incidental recall, self-rating decision time, and written examples of behavioral experiences in response to positive and negative self-descriptive words were conducted to investigate schematic processing in two samples of nondepressed, mildly depressed, and moderately depressed college subjects. Results indicated that efficient schematic processing for particular types of word content was related to both severity of symptoms and duration of recent depression. A second set of results indicated that depressive schema responding was highly mood-congruent, and did not persist when persons were no longer depressed. These and related results are not consistent with certain of Beck's notions of depressive schemas, and suggest instead that depressed mood may activate depressive processing, rather than result from it.