Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Implicit theories and depression in clinical and non-clinical samples: The mediating role of experiential avoidance

  • Published:
Current Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Implicit theories refer to people’s beliefs about the malleability of personal attributes. Although previous studies have found that those who believe that their attributes are fixed (i.e., entity theorists) tend to be more depressed than those who do not (i.e., incremental theorists), the underlying mechanism is yet to be fully understood. In the present study, we examined experiential avoidance as a potential mediator of this association in both clinical and non-clinical samples. Patients with depressive disorder (N = 100) and a non-clinical community sample of adults (N = 100) completed measures of implicit theories about anxiety, emotion, and personality, as well as measures of experiential avoidance and depression. The results indicated that experiential avoidance mediated the association between implicit theories in the three domains and depression in both patient and community samples. We replicated previous findings of the positive association between an entity theory and depression in understudied samples, and identified experiential avoidance as a mediator regardless of the severity of the depression.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We note that participants responded to the 10-item version of the AAQ-II measure, but we computed their experiential avoidance score excluding the three reverse-coded items, as doing so has been found to make the measure psychometrically stronger (Bond et al. 2011). However, the internal reliability of the 10-item version was comparably high in the present research (α = .89), and all of the results we report here did not significantly change when we computed participants’ experiential avoidance score using all 10 items.

  2. Our proposed model was based on previous studies that have theoretically suggested (Dweck and Leggett 1988) and found experimental support for (Blackwell et al. 2007; Burnette 2010; Kneeland et al. 2016) the idea that implicit theories cause differences in response patterns. That is, it is likely that implicit theories influence the extent to which they use avoidant strategies to escape from unwanted experiences, rather than the other way around. Supporting our proposed model, when we conducted mediational analyses with experiential avoidance as the predictor and implicit theories across different domains as the mediators, we found that only two of the six possible indirect effects emerged as significant (in contrast to the all six indirect effects emerging as significant in our model as shown in Table 3).

References

  • Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the Beck depression inventory-II. San Antonio: Psychological Corporation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78, 246–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bond, F. W., Hayes, S. C., Baer, R. A., Carpenter, K. M., Guenole, N., Orcutt, H. K., Waltz, T., & Zettle, R. D. (2011). Preliminary psychometric properties of the acceptance and action questionnaire–II: A revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. Behavior Therapy, 42, 676–688.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burnette, J. L. (2010). Implicit theories of body weight: Entity beliefs can weigh you down. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 410–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burns, K. C., & Isbell, L. M. (2007). Promoting malleability is not one size fits all: Priming implicit theories of intelligence as a function of self-theories. Self and Identity, 6, 51–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Castella, K., Goldin, P., Jazaieri, H., Ziv, M., Dweck, C. S., & Gross, J. J. (2013). Beliefs about emotion: Links to emotion regulation, well-being, and psychological distress. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 35, 497–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S., & Elliott-Moskwa, E. S. (2010). Self-theories: The roots of defensiveness. In J. E. Maddux & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Social psychological foundations of clinical psychology (pp. 136–156). New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S., Chiu, C. Y., & Hong, Y. Y. (1995). Implicit theories and their role in judgments and reactions: A word from two perspectives. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 267–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • First, M. B., Spitzer, R. L., Gibbon, M., & Williams, J. B. W. (1997). Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, clinician version. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 224–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, S. C., Wilson, K. G., Gifford, E. V., Follette, V. M., & Strosahl, K. (1996). Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 1152–1168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howell, A. J. (2017). Believing in change: Reviewing the role of implicit theories in psychological dysfunction. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 36, 437–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kappes, A., & Schikowski, A. (2013). Implicit theories of emotion shape regulation of negative affect. Cognition & Emotion, 27, 952–960.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knee, C. R. (1998). Implicit theories of relationships: Assessment and prediction of romantic relationship initiation, coping, and longevity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 360–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kneeland, E. T., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., Dovidio, J. F., & Gruber, J. (2016). Emotion malleability beliefs influence the spontaneous regulation of social anxiety. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 40, 496–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miu, A. S., & Yeager, D. S. (2015). Preventing symptoms of depression by teaching adolescents that people can change: Effects of a brief incremental theory of personality intervention at 9-month follow-up. Clinical Psychological Science, 3, 726–743.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schleider, J. L., Abel, M. R., & Weisz, J. R. (2015). Implicit theories and youth mental health problems: A random-effects meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 35, 1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schroder, H. S., Dawood, S., Yalch, M. M., Donnellan, M. B., & Moser, J. S. (2015). The role of implicit theories in mental health symptoms, emotion regulation, and hypothetical treatment choices in college students. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 39, 120–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schroder, H. S., Dawood, S., Yalch, M. M., Donnellan, M. B., & Moser, J. S. (2016). Evaluating the domain specificity of mental health-related mind-sets. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 508–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spinhoven, P., Drost, J., de Rooij, M., van Hemert, A. M., & Penninx, B. W. (2016). Is experiential avoidance a mediating, moderating, independent, overlapping, or proxy risk factor in the onset, relapse and maintenance of depressive disorders? Cognitive Therapy and Research, 40, 150–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamir, M., John, O. P., Srivastava, S., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Implicit theories of emotion: Affective and social outcomes across a major life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 731–744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tull, M. T., Gratz, K. L., Salters, K., & Roemer, L. (2004). The role of experiential avoidance in posttraumatic stress symptoms and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 192, 754–761.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yeager, D. S., Miu, A. S., Powers, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2013). Implicit theories of personality and attributions of hostile intent: A meta-analysis, an experiment, and a longitudinal intervention. Child Development, 84, 1651–1667.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yeager, D. S., Johnson, R., Spitzer, B. J., Trzesniewski, K. H., Powers, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). The far-reaching effects of believing people can change: Implicit theories of personality shape stress, health, and achievement during adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 867–884.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, South Korea

    Gyhye Sung, Yoobin Park & Sun W. Park

  2. Department of Psychiatry, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University, Seongnam, South Korea

    Gyhye Sung & Tai Kiu Choi

Authors
  1. Gyhye Sung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yoobin Park
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tai Kiu Choi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sun W. Park
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sun W. Park.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendix

Appendix

 

Implicit theory measures

 

Emotion (Tamir et al. 2007)

1

Everyone can learn to control their emotions.

2

If they want to, people can change the emotions that they have.

3

No matter how hard they try, people can’t really change the emotions that they have.

4

The truth is, people have very little control over their emotions.

 

Anxiety (Schroder et al. 2015)

1

You have a certain amount of anxiety and you really cannot do much to change it.

2

Your anxiety is something about you that you cannot change very much.

3

To be honest, you cannot really change how anxious you are.

4

No matter how hard you try, you can’t really change the level of anxiety that you have.

 

Personality (Dweck et al. 1995)

1

The kind of person someone is is something very basic about them and it can’t be changed very much.

2

People can do things differently, but the important parts of who they are can’t really be changed.

3

Everyone is a certain kind of person and there is not much that can be done to really change that.

 

The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (Bond et al. 2011)

1

My painful experiences and memories make it difficult for me to live a life that I would value.

2

I’m afraid of my feelings.

3

I worry about not being able to control my worries and feelings.

4

My painful memories prevent me from having a fulfilling life.

5

Emotions cause problems in my life.

6

It seems like most people are handling their lives better than I am.

7

Worries get in the way of my success.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sung, G., Park, Y., Choi, T.K. et al. Implicit theories and depression in clinical and non-clinical samples: The mediating role of experiential avoidance. Curr Psychol 39, 68–73 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9736-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9736-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation