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Distinguishing the dimensions of valence and belief consistency in depressive and nondepressive information processing

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Abstract

The biasing effects of valence congruence and belief congruence were examined in depressed and nondepressed subjects. We hypothesized that congruence between the valence of material and subjects' psychological status, when disentangled from congruence with subjects' beliefs, would enhance recall and recognition of self-descriptions and would lead to more confirmation of feedback. Depressed and nondepressed women rated the selfdescriptiveness of personal adjectives. Two weeks later they were given bogus personality test feedback based on their prior self-descriptions. Each subject received all four combinations of two crossed dimensions: Information was either consistent or inconsistent with previously specified beliefs about the self and was either flattering or unflattering. During Session II, subjects were more likely to recall and recognize flattering self-descriptions than unflattering self-descriptions after statistically controlling for consistency with earlier beliefs. These differences were significantly more pronounced for nondepressed than for depressed subjects. Subjects rated flattering feedback as more accurate than unflattering feedback, supplied more confirmatory evidence to verify it, and assigned lower priorities to gaining additional related information. The same effect was observed for belief-congruent as compared with incongruent feedback. Depressed and nondepressed subjects did not differ significantly in response to feedback. Although feedback valence influened response to feedback, the effect was not different for depressed and nondepressed subjects.

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Rude, S.S., Krantz, S.E. & Rosenhan, D.L. Distinguishing the dimensions of valence and belief consistency in depressive and nondepressive information processing. Cogn Ther Res 12, 391–407 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173306

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