Depressive realism and the effect of intertrial interval on judgements of zero, positive, and negative contingencies.

Msetfi, Rachel M. and Murphy, Robin A. and Simpson, Jane (2007) Depressive realism and the effect of intertrial interval on judgements of zero, positive, and negative contingencies. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Series a Human Experimental Psychology, 60 (3). pp. 461-481. ISSN 1464-0740

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Abstract

In three experiments we tested how the spacing of trials during acquisition of zero, positive, and negative response-outcome contingencies differentially affected depressed and nondepressed students' judgements. Experiment 1 found that nondepressed participants' judgements of zero contingencies increased with longer intertrial intervals (ITIs) but not simply longer procedure durations. Depressed groups' judgements were not sensitive to either manipulation, producing an effect known as depressive realism only with long ITIs. Experiments 2 and 3 tested predictions of Cheng's (1997) Power PC theory and the Rescorla-Wagner (1972) model, that the increase in context exposure experienced during the ITI might influence judgements most with negative contingencies and least with positive contingencies. Results suggested that depressed people were less sensitive to differences in contingency and contextual exposure. We propose that a context-processing difference between depressed and nondepressed people removes any objective notion of “realism” that was originally employed to explain the depressive realism effect (Alloy & Abramson, 1979).

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Series a Human Experimental Psychology
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200
Subjects:
?? cognitive psychologycomparative psychologypsychology(all)experimental and cognitive psychologyr medicine (general) ??
ID Code:
32279
Deposited By:
Users 810 not found.
Deposited On:
18 Mar 2010 15:08
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
28 Nov 2023 11:08