Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1989, Vol. 56, No. 3,431-445

Copyright 1989 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/89/S00.75

Processing of Ambiguous and Unambiguous Feedback by Depressed andNondepressed College Students; Schematic Biases and Their

Implications for Pepressive Realism

Benjamin M. Dykman and Lyn Y. AbramsonUniversity of Wisconsin—Madison

Lauren B. Alloy and Shirley HartlageNorthwestern University

Explored schematic processing as a mechanism for predicting (a) when depressed Ss would be nega-tive relative to nondepressed Ss and (b) when depressed and nondepressed Ss would show biased orunbiased (i.e., "realistic") processing. Depressed and nondepressed Ss performed multiple trials ofa task under conditions in which the two groups held either equivalent or different schemas regardingthis task. Ss received either an unambiguous or objectively normed ambiguous feedback cue on eachtrial. In full support of schematic processing, depressed Ss showed negative encoding relative tonondepressed Ss only when their schemas were more negative, and both depressed and nondepressedSs showed positively biased, negatively biased, and unbiased encoding depending on the relativefeedback cue-to-schema match. Depressed and nondepressed Ss' response latencies to unambiguousfeedback also supported the occurrence of schematic processing. We discuss the methodological,treatment, and "realism" implications of these findings and suggest a more precise formulation ofBeck's schema theory of depression.

A core postulate of Beck's (1967,1976r, Beck, Rush, Shaw, &Emery, 1979) cognitive theory of depression is that depressedindividuals possess stable and enduring negative schemas thatserve as conceptual niters for the coding, screening, and generalevaluation of impinging stimuli. According to Beck, these nega-tive schemas and the "faulty" processing strategies they engen-der (e.g., arbitrary inference, dichotomous thinking) lead topervasive negative themes in the depressed individual's cogni-tions about the self, world, and future. Beck hypothesized thatthese cognitions are not only consistently negative relative tothose of nondepressed individuals, but are consistently exagger-ated and hence unrealistically negative as well.

Given Beck's (1967, 1976, Beck etal., 1979) portrayal of de-pressive cognition, a frequent interpretation of his schema the-ory that has guided much research is that depressed individualsare both "characteristically" negative and "characteristically"

This research is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted by Benja-min M. Dykman to the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Supportfor this research came from a Romnes Fellowship awarded to Lyn Y.Abramson and by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacAr-thur Foundation awarded to both Lyn Y. Abramson and Lauren B. Al-loy. Portions of this research were presented at the 21 st Annual Conven-tion of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Bos-ton, November 1987.

We would like to thank Jim Embke, Carrie Fuller, Angelique Hemery,Nancy Lightfoot, Marion Meyer, and Joy Wallin for their assistancewith data collection and Judy Markgraf for her assistance in the prepa-ration of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Benja-min M. Dykman, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin,1202 W. Johnson Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706.

unrealistic or biased relative to nondepressed individuals. (Bythe term characteristically we mean always or across all situa-tions, content domains, etc.). It is noteworthy that "characteris-tic processing" interpretations of depressive cognition have notbeen limited to Beck's schema theory but extend even to find-ings that run counter to his view. Specifically, a number of stud-ies conducted on the judgment of control (e.g., Alloy & Abram-son, 1979, 1982; Golin, Terrell, & Johnson, 1977; Golin, Ter-rell, Weitz, & Drost, 1979), recall of feedback (e.g., Nelson &Craighead, 1977, punishment condition; Wenzlaff & Berman,1985), and perception of social competence (e.g., Lewinsohn,Mischel, Chaplin, & Barton, 1980) have also been interpretedby many as suggesting that depressed and nondepressed indi-viduals process information in characteristically different ways(i.e., that depressed people are characteristically accurate,whereas nondepressed people are characteristically positivelybiased). Hence, perhaps owing to a "fundamental attributionerror" (Ross, 1977), we hold that there has been a general ten-dency to interpret both clinical and empirical evidence as indi-cating that depressed and nondepressed individuals process in-formation in traitlike, characteristic ways.

In this research, we examined depressed and nondepressedindividuals' encoding and recall of ambiguous and unambigu-ous feedback to determine (a) when depressed individuals willand will not make negative inferences relative to nondepressedindividuals, and (b) when depressed and nondepressed individ-uals will be biased or unbiased relative to a normative baseline.In addressing these issues, we discuss and contrast the predic-tions one would make on the basis of existing characteristic pro-cessing accounts of depressive and nondepressive cognitionwith those one would make on the basis of contemporary re-search and theorizing on the schema.

431

432 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

Characteristic Negativity Versus Schematic Negativity:Predicting Depressed-Nondepressed Differences

in Encoding

Although many studies have demonstrated that depressed in-dividuals process information more negatively than nonde-pressed individuals, studies comparing these groups in their en-coding of ambiguous feedback have not followed this trend.Specifically, two such investigations (Craighead, Hickey, & De-Monbreun, 1979; DeMonbreun & Craighead, 1977) obtainedno support for the prediction that depressed individuals nega-tively bias their encoding of ambiguous feedback relative tonondepressed individuals, and a third study (Dykman & Volpi-celli, 1983) obtained only partial support for this prediction.

Although these ambiguous feedback studies apparently con-tradict Beck's (1967, 1976) schema theory of depression, thismay be the case only if one views Beck's theory as a characteris-tic processing theory rather than as a schema theory. That is, asexplicated by current research and theorizing on the schema(cf. Alba & Hasher, 1983; Markus & Zajonc, 1985; Taylor &Crocker, 1981), depressed and nondepressed individuals shouldinterpret the same information differently only when eachgroup assimilates that information (via schematic processing)to different schemas. Quite possibly, however, depressed andnondepressed subjects in prior ambiguous feedback researchmay not have held different schemas with regard to such noveltasks as dot counting (Dykman & Volpicelli, 1983) or syllablematching (Craighead et al., 1979; DeMonbreun & Craighead,1977), a consideration supported by work indicating that de-pressed and nondepressed individuals hold equivalent perfor-mance expectancies across a wide range of tasks (e.g., Abram-son, Garber, Edwards, & Seligman, 1978; Smolen, 1978).

One objective of the current research was to determinewhether depressed individuals are characteristically negative intheir encoding of ambiguous feedback relative to nondepressedindividuals, or whether such negativity depends on depressedpeople having more negative schemas than nondepressed peo-ple with regard to the task at hand. To achieve this objective,we first determined various content areas that discriminateddepressed and nondepressed individuals with regard to theirself-schemas as opposed to content areas that did not (i.e.,Study 1). We then incorporated this knowledge in designing thetwo experimental conditions of our second and main study ofinterest. In the schema-discriminating condition, depressed andnondepressed subjects performed a task ostensibly requiringabilities that, according to Study 1, discriminated these twogroups vis-a-vis their self-schemas. In the schema-nondiscrimi-nating condition, a second group of depressed and nonde-pressed subjects performed an identical task that, by contrast,ostensibly required abilities that did not discriminate the self-schemas of these two groups. In both conditions, subjects re-ceived multiple trials of ambiguous and unambiguous feed-back, and following each trial subjects were required either toidentify or to infer the identity of each feedback cue adminis-tered. We reasoned that if depressed individuals are characteris-tically negative in their encoding of ambiguous feedback rela-tive to nondepressed individuals, then depressed-nondepressedencoding differences should obtain in both experimental condi-tions. On the other hand, if schematic differences between de-pressed and nondepressed individuals are a determinant of de-

pressed-nondepressed encoding differences, then depressed in-dividuals should negatively bias their encoding of ambiguousfeedback relative to nondepressed individuals in the schema-discriminating but not the schema-nondiscriminating condi-tion.1 Last, insofar as both Beck (1967, 1976) and contempo-rary social-cognitive psychologists (Markus & Zajonc, 1985)have pointed to the schema's heightened influence under condi-tions of ambiguity, we also explored whether depressed-nonde-pressed encoding differences would be greater for ambiguouscompared with unambiguous feedback trials.

Characteristically Biased Processing VersusSchematically Biased Processing: Predicting

Nonnormative Bias

Biases in the Encoding of Ambiguous Feedback

As described in the preceding section, two major viewpointsexist that address the normativeness of depressive and nonde-pressive cognition, with each viewpoint suggesting the possibil-ity that depressed and nondepressed individuals process infor-mation in characteristically biased or unbiased ways. One viewrelates to Beck's assertion (1967, 1976; Beck et al., 1979) that,relative to a normative baseline, depressed individuals makenegatively biased or distorted interpretations of reality, whereasnondepressed individuals make unbiased or realistic interpre-tations (which we term depressive pessimism and nondepressiverealism). The second view derives from work (see Alloy & Ab-ramson, 1988, and Alloy, Albright, Abramson, & Dykman, inpress, for reviews) that suggests the converse effect: that is, thatrelative to a normative baseline, depressive inference is unbi-ased or realistic, whereas nondepressive inference leads to posi-tively biased or distorted interpretations of reality (i.e., depres-sive realism and nondepressive optimism).

A second objective of this research was to determine whetherdepressed and nondepressed individuals do in fact have charac-teristic biasing tendencies that fit either of the viewpoints de-scribed previously. To assess this possibility, we presented sub-jects with ambiguous feedback in the form of different feedback"pairs" and required subjects to choose which of the two com-peting feedback cues in each pair was their "true" feedback.Following Kahneman and Tversky (1973) and Langer (1975),we adopted a probability-based standard as our normative base-line and accordingly defined an unbiased outcome for any givenfeedback pair as a pattern of judgments in which both membersof the feedback pair are selected with equal probability. On theother hand, we defined a biased outcome for any given feedbackpair as a pattern of judgments in which one member of the feed-back pair is selected with a higher probability than the othermember. On this basis, we predicted that if depressive pessi-mism and nondepressive realism reflect the use of characteristicprocessing strategies, then in both experimental conditions de-

1 On the basis of the general failure of previous encoding of ambigu-ous feedback studies to obtain depressed-nondepressed processingdifferences, we acknowledge that a third possible prediction is thatgroup differences would not obtain in either the schema-discriminatingor schema-nondiscriminating condition. Such a finding would supportthe view that depressed and nondepressed individuals simply do notdiffer in their encoding of ambiguous information.

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 433

pressed subjects should choose the more negative member ofeach given feedback pair with a higher probability than themore positive member, whereas nondepressed subjects shouldchoose both members with equal probability. On the otherhand, if depressive realism and nondepressive optimism reflectthe use of characteristic processing strategies, we predicted theappropriate counterpart effect.

The preceding predictions rest on the premise that depressedand nondepressed individuals are either characteristically unbi-ased or biased information processors. Suggesting an alternativeview, however, are the mixed findings that have been obtainedwith regard to displays of bias among these groups. That is,whereas some studies have found depressed people to be themore "realistic" group (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1979; Nelson& Craighead, 1977, punishment condition; Lewinsohn et al.,1980), other studies have found nondepressed people to be themore "realistic" group (e.g., DeMonbreun & Craighead, 1977;Gotlib, 1983; Nelson & Craighead, 1977, reinforcement condi-tion). As these mixed findings suggest that biased and unbiasedoutcomes are not specific to either group (Kuiper & Higgins,1985), an intriguing additional hypothesis is that both de-pressed and nondepressed individuals use the same processingstrategy, one that leads to both realistic (i.e., unbiased) and un-realistic (i.e., biased) outcomes for both depressed and nonde-pressed individuals alike, depending on conditions.

One processing strategy that current research and theorizingsuggests might meet these requirements is schematic processing(Neisser, 1976), whereby information is interpreted so as to beconsistent with the content of a schema. Thus, we also exploredwhether both depressed and nondepressed people engage inschematic processing and thus bias their encoding of ambigu-ous feedback in the direction of their respective schemas. If thiswere the case, we predicted that both biased and unbiased out-comes would occur for each group, with both types of outcomesbeing a function of the match between the valence of eachgroup's schema and the particular feedback pair being pro-cessed. Thus, for depressed and nondepressed subjects in bothexperimental conditions, the encoding of ambiguous feedbackpairs negatively positioned relative to the schema should be pos-itively biased, the encoding of ambiguous feedback pairs posi-tively positioned relative to the schema should be negatively bi-ased, and the encoding of ambiguous feedback pairs that matchthe schema should be unbiased. Last, if we combine across am-biguous feedback pairs, then schematic processing allows eitherdepressed or nondepressed individuals to be the less biasedgroup overall, depending on which group's schema more closelymatches the average value of this combined feedback group.

Biases in Response Latencies toUnambiguous Feedback

In addition to examining biases in the encoding of ambigu-ous feedback, we also examined possible biases in depressedand nondepressed individuals' identification of unambiguousfeedback. To gauge this bias, we unobtrusively recorded sub-jects' response latencies to the differently valenced unambigu-ous feedback cues presented.

The distinction between characteristic and schematic pro-cessing again served as a framework for prediction. We rea-soned that having a particular characteristic processing bias

(i.e., depressive pessimism or nondepressive optimism) wouldresult in a linearly increasing delayed response (or "resistance")to feedback whose valence was increasingly inconsistent withthat bias. Alternatively, characteristically unbiased processing(i.e., depressive realism or nondepressive realism) would resultin some constant reaction time regardless of feedback valence.

A different prediction, however, would follow if both de-pressed and nondepressed individuals engaged in schematicallybiased processing. On the basis of a number of findings indicat-ing faster processing times for schema-congruent as opposed toschema-incongruent material (e.g., Lingle & Ostrom, 1979;Markus, 1977; Payne, Connor, & Colletti, 1987), we would ex-pect the response latencies of both depressed and nondepressedsubjects to vary as a function of the degree to which a particularfeedback cue and a particular group's schema are congruent.Thus, for depressed and nondepressed subjects in both experi-mental conditions, response times should be fastest to the feed-back cue lying closest to each group's schema and progressivelyslower to feedback cues lying progressively farther from eachgroup's schema (i.e., a curvilinear latency pattern if a group'sschema lies between the extremes of the feedback valences ad-ministered).

Biases in Summary Recall of Unambiguous Feedback

We obtained a final measure of processing biases in this studyby using a recall task in which subjects were asked to recall howmany trials of each different unambiguous feedback type theyhad received. We predicted that if depressive pessimism andnondepressive realism are characteristic tendencies, then de-pressed subjects should negatively bias their recall of feedback,whereas nondepressed subjects should be unbiased (i.e., acrossboth experimental conditions). On the other hand, if depressiverealism and nondepressive optimism are characteristic tenden-cies, we predicted the appropriate counterpart effect. However,if both depressed and nondepressed subjects engaged in sche-matically biased processing, then biased or unbiased recallcould occur among either group depending on the relativematch between a group's schema and the average value of thevarious unambiguous feedback cues administered (with the di-rection of bias again going in the direction of each group'sschema).

Study 1

As suggested earlier, a number of investigators have pre-sumed that depressed and nondepressed subjects approach var-ious laboratory tasks with different schemas without first sub-jecting this presumption to test. The goal of Study 1 was to com-pare the self-schemas of depressed and nondepressed subjectson each of 50 trait dimensions and thereby determine the con-tent domains in which depressed subjects' self-schemas aremore negative than those of nondepressed subjects. We then ap-plied the knowledge gained from these comparisons to Study 2to assess the conditions under which depressed subjects wouldnegatively bias their encoding of ambiguous and unambiguousfeedback relative to nondepressed subjects.

MethodSubjects, materials, and procedure. Introductory psychology stu-

dents served as subjects and received extra-credit points for their partici-

434 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

pation in the study. In a mass screening session at the start of the semes-ter, male and female subjects were given the Beck Depression Inventory(BDI; Beck, 1967) followed by a 50-item self-schema inventory entitledthe "Self-Description Questionnaire." The BDI served as a screeningmeasure; 37 subjects with BDI scores of 0 or 1 were classified as nonde-pressed (M = .27) and 21 subjects with scores of 13 or above (M =19.10) were classified as depressed.

We used the self-schema inventory to assess and compare the self-schemas of subjects classified as depressed and nondepressed on each of50 randomly ordered trait dimensions. For each trait dimension, sub-jects rated how they generally viewed themselves on that trait dimensionand then made a rating of how important that trait dimension was totheir self-view. All ratings were made on a 9-point Likert scale (e.g., 1 =Very unmotivated, 9 = Very motivated; or 1 = Not at all important, 9 =Very important). For a group to qualify as having a self-schema on aparticular trait dimension, we required that depressed and nonde-pressed subjects' mean self-ratings be accompanied by a mean impor-tance rating of at least 5.0, signifying that a trait dimension was of atleast moderate importance and thus could be considered a well-articu-lated structure in memory (cf. Markus, 1977; Markus, Smith, & More-land, 1985).

Results and Discussion

For each trait dimension, we tested for depressed-nonde-pressed differences in self-ratings and importance ratings usingt tests. Table 1 presents these results, with self-ratings rank or-dered by ascending t values. Examination of Table 1 indicatesthat the self-ratings of depressed and nondepressed subjectsdiffered significantly (in the expected direction) on 41 out of the50 trait dimensions presented, but that the remaining 9 traitdimensions did not significantly distinguish the two groups.2'3

As noted earlier, for a group to qualify as having a schemaalong a given trait dimension, we required that the trait receivea mean importance rating by that group of at least 5.0. As Table1 indicates, for both depressed and nondepressed subjects, all50 trait dimensions met this criterion (this unanimity perhapsreflecting our initial intuitively guided attempt to select impor-tant trait dimensions).

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that although de-pressed individuals' self-schemas are generally negative, theyare not characteristically (i.e., universally) negative relative tothose of nondepressed individuals. Instead, depressed and non-depressed subjects appear to hold statistically equivalent self-schemas on a select number of trait dimensions.

Study 2

Given Study 1 's results that depressed and nondepressed sub-jects' self-schemas differed in some content areas but not others,one goal of Study 2 was to determine whether these groupswould show counterpart differences in the encoding of ambigu-ous and unambiguous feedback. Thus, we incorporated intoStudy 2's design a number of content areas from Study 1 thatdid and did not discriminate the self-schemas of depressed andnondepressed subjects. In Study 2 we also compared depressedand nondepressed individuals' encoding, response latencies,and recall of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback to deter-mine whether either group is "characteristically" biased or un-biased, or whether biased and unbiased outcomes for bothgroups are a function of the feedback-to-schema match.

Method

Subjects. As in Study 1, subjects were drawn from a pool of introduc-tory psychology students, but in the subsequent semester. In anothermass screening session, subjects completed the BDI, and individualswith BDI scores of 13 and above (depressed) or 0 or 1 (nondepressed)were later phoned to participate in the experiment. Just prior to eachsubject's participation, subjects again completed the BDI and, in orderto match the subject selection criteria of Study 1, only subjects whoscored 13 or above and 0 or 1 at retest were included in the final dataanalysis (the average intertest interval being approximately 3 weeks).The final subject sample consisted of 84 subjects, 30 men and 54women.

Experimental design and feedback conditions. We randomly assignedsubjects to one of four experimental conditions in a 2 X 2 X 2 factorialdesign with between-subjects variables of group (depressed vs. nonde-pressed) and condition (schema-discriminating vs. schema-nondiscrim-inating) and a within-subjects variable of feedback clarity (ambiguousvs. unambiguous).

In both the schema-discriminating and schema-nondiscriminatingconditions, subjects performed an identical task, that is, 45 trials of acomputer-administered dot-counting task. In the schema-discriminat-ing condition, performance on the dot-counting task was described as ameasure of one's tendency to be successful, productive, and motivated.In Study 1, these were trait dimensions on which a similar sample ofdepressed and nondepressed subjects held different schemas. In theschema-nondiscriminating condition, by contrast, subjects were toldthat performance on the dot-counting task was a measure of one's ten-dency to be polite, considerate, and courteous. In Study 1, these weretrait dimensions on which a similar sample of depressed and nonde-pressed subjects held equivalent schemas. Although theoretically otherschema-discriminating and schema-nondiscriminating trait dimen-sions could also have served as task descriptors, our final choices re-flected our preference for traits that lay at or near the extremes of the tvalue continuum (to enhance the robustness of our effects) and thatwere conducive to the construction of a compelling cover story.4 Manip-

2 We also assessed whether depressed-nondepressed differences inself-ratings covaried as a function of subjects' importance ratings. Com-paring depressed and nondepressed subjects' self-ratings using respec-tive importance ratings as covariates yielded adjusted t values whoserank ordering paralleled closely the rank ordering presented in Table 1(Spearman's p = .98). Similarly, subjecting the self-ratings presented inthe first 2 rows of Table 3 to a two-way analysis of covariance (withimportance ratings as the covariate) yielded an interaction F value of16.53, which is essentially equivalent to the nonadjusted two-way analy-sis of variance F value of 16.80.

3 It is important to point out that although we attempted to samplebroadly in constructing the self-schema inventory, our sampling ap-proach was largely exploratory and intuitively based. Until a more ex-haustive and bias-protected sampling is undertaken, we caution that theproportions of schema-discriminating and nondiscriminating traits weobtained (i.e., 41:50 and 9:50, respectively) may not be representative.

4 We also assessed whether the two sets of traits used as task descrip-tors were factorially independent of each other. This was done by sub-jecting subjects' ratings on the six trait dimensions to a principal-factoranalysis with orthogonal rotation. Two factors having eigenvaluesgreater than 1.0 emerged, accounting for 80% of the total variance inthe matrix. Invoking a .50 inclusion cutoff, Factor 1 emerged as anAchievement factor with loadings of .96, .88, and .79, respectively, forthe traits of unproductive-productive, unmotivated-motivated, andunsuccessful-successful. Factor 2 emerged as a Sensitive-to-Others fac-tor, with loadings of .88, .69, and .68, respectively, for the traits of rude-polite, discourteous-courteous, and inconsiderate-considerate. All re-maining loadings were .29 or lower. This analysis thus corroborates the

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 435

ulation checks appraising the plausibility of the cover story are de-scribed later.

Following each trial of the dot-counting task, subjects received com-puter-generated but bogus feedback evaluating the accuracy of their dotestimate. In both experimental conditions, feedback was conveyed byway of a vertically arrayed 5-point scale. Each point on the scale wasanchored with an evaluative label, but in each experimental conditionthese labels differed in order to correspond to the schema of interest.Thus, in the schema-discriminating condition, the 5-point scale was an-chored in the following way:

1 You are a person who is VERY SUCCESSFUL (very motivated,productive)

2 You are a person who is SOMEWHAT SUCCESSFUL (some-what motivated, productive)

3 You are a person who is EQUALLY SUCCESSFUL AND UN-SUCCESSFUL

4 You are a person who is SOMEWHAT UNSUCCESSFUL(somewhat unmotivated, unproductive)

5 You are a person who is VERY UNSUCCESSFUL (very unmoti-vated, unproductive)

This contrasts with the 5-point scale in the schema-nondiscriminatingcondition, which was anchored as follows:

1 You are a person who is VERY POLITE (very considerate, cour-teous)

2 You are a person who is SOMEWHAT POLITE (somewhat con-siderate, courteous)

3 You are a person who is EQUALLY POLITE AND RUDE4 You are a person who is SOMEWHAT RUDE (somewhat incon-

siderate, discourteous)5 \bu are a person who is VERY RUDE (very inconsiderate, dis-

courteous)

In personalizing the feedback in both experimental conditions (i.e.,"\ou are a person who is. . . ."), we hoped to increase the likelihoodthat subjects' responses to the feedback would be mediated by the par-ticular schema of interest.

In both experimental conditions, the full 5-point feedback displayappeared each time a feedback trial was administered. For unambigu-ous feedback trials, subjects were told that the number correspondingto their feedback would start flashing. Hence, unambiguous feedbackconsisted of a single flashing number. For the ambiguous feedback trials,however, subjects were administered two simultaneously flashing num-bers instead of one, in which case subjects were required to choosewhich of the two competing feedback candidates was their "true" feed-back. For the ambiguous feedback trials, repetitions of four differentfeedback pairs were presented, that is, the 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5 pairs.

Procedure. Subjects were run individually by an experimenter whowas blind to the subjects' depression status. On arriving for the experi-ment, subjects were requested to read and sign a consent form and thencomplete the BDI. Subjects were then seated in front of a Commodore64 computer keyboard and an Apple He green screen monitor. The ex-perimenter, seated approximately 3 ft away, then started a taped set ofinstructions.

At the start of the taped instructions, all subjects were told that duringthe experiment 45 dot displays containing between 10 and 500 dots

internal consistency and factorial independence of our task descriptorsets.

More generally, it is interesting to note that traits in Table 1 havingsmall t values tended to be Sensitive-to-Others-related, whereas traitshaving large ( values tended to be Achievement-related. This suggeststhat there may exist independent but broad domains along which theschemas of depressed and nondepressed individuals differ more (i.e., theachievement domain) or less (i.e., the sensitive-to-others domain).

would appear briefly on the computer screen in front of them, and thattheir task was to estimate the number of dots that appeared in eachdisplay. Following this general introduction, the taped instructionsdiffered for subjects in the two experimental conditions. Subjects in theschema-nondiscriminating condition received instructions that por-trayed the dot-counting task as a measure of one's tendency to be polite,considerate, and courteous (i.e., schema-nondiscriminating trait di-mensions from Study 1). This task description read as follows:

The reason we know that doing well on this task is related toone's ability to evaluate ambiguous situations quickly and accu-rately is through studies where we have looked at the way peoplehandle real-life situations. What we have found is that people whodo well on the dot counting task also tend to do well in certainreal life situations that are ambiguous and that require quick andaccurate judgments. Perhaps the best example of such a real-lifesituation is one in which we must quickly decide what to do in orderto behave politely towards another person. That is, oftentimes wefind ourselves in situations with other people where there are noclear guidelines as to what we should say or how we should act. Insuch situations, we must size up the situation quickly and find outwhat the other person's needs are and how we should respond tothose needs. Thus, in many social situations that require polite-ness, there's a lot that goes on in a short amount of time just as alot goes on in a short amount of time in the dot counting task thatyou are about to perform.

Evidence that supports a close relationship between one's dotcounting ability and one's tendency to behave rudely or politelycomes from a study we conducted on over 300 U.W. undergrads.The data from this study indicate that those same students whoperformed well on the dot counting task also tended to respondwith politeness, courteousness, and considerateness when placedin ambiguous social situations that required quick and accuratejudgments. On the other hand, students who did poorly on the dotcounting task were people who tended to come across as rude, dis-courteous, and inconsiderate when placed in such ambiguous so-cial situations. Thus, how well you perform on the dot countingtask is highly predictive of how polite or rude you will come acrossin ambiguous social situations that require a quick and accuratesizing up of the situation .

For subjects in the schema-discriminating condition, on the other hand,performance on the dot-counting task was portrayed as a measure ofone's tendency to be successful, motivated, and productive (i.e.,schema-discriminating trait dimensions from Study 1). This task de-scription read:

As you can well guess, the ability to evaluate ambiguous situa-tions quickly and accurately is an ability that is needed for doingwell in a large number of real-life situations. This is because manysituations in life, especially high pressure achievement situations,require us to make quick and accurate judgments even when theright answer is not readily apparent. This often occurs in manyhigh pressure achievement situations where there are no clearguidelines as to what we should say, how we should act, or what theright answer is. Thus in many high pressure achievement situationsthere's a lot that goes on in a short amount of time and our job isto come up with a correct judgment. As you will soon see, there'sa lot that goes on in a short amount of time in the dot counting taskbut you must nevertheless try to come up with a correct judgment.

Evidence that supports a close relationship between one's dotcounting ability and one's ability to perform well in high pressureachievement situations comes from a study we conducted on over300 U.W. undergrads. This study indicates that students who per-formed well on the dot counting task also tended to be much moresuccessful in achievement situations than students who performedpoorly on the dot counting task. These students not only tended tobe more successful, but they also tended to be more motivated andmore productive compared to students who performed poorly onthe dot counting task. Thus, because the dot counting task is repre-sentative of high pressure, ambiguous achievement situations that

436 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

Table 1Mean Self-Ratings and Importance Ratings by Depressed and Nondepressed Subjects on 50 Trait Dimensions: Study 1

Trait dimension

Unsympathetic-sympatheticRude-politeBoastful-humbleDiscourteous-courteousInconsiderate-considerateUntrustworthy-trustworthyUnreliable-reliableDishonest-honestUnfriendly-friendlyStingy-generousUndependable-dependableUnkind-kindDisagreeable-agreeableImmature-matureBad-good sense of humorDisliked-liked by othersDisrespectful-respectfulIllogical-logicalUnpredictable-predictableIntroverted-extrovertedDefensive-nondefensiveUnassertive-assertiveShy-outgoingSluggish-energeticTimid-braveUnenthusiastic-enthusiasticHelpless- masterfulUndecisive-decisiveSocially unskilled-skilledImpulsive-nonimpulsiveDeceiving-genuineUnambitious-ambitiousIneffective-effectiveUnintelligent-intelligentDull-interestingFearful-fearlessUnmotivated-motivatedUnlovable-lovableIncapable-capableShameful-praiseworthyIncompetent-competentUnproductive-productiveUnconfident-confidentUnsuccessful-successfulPessimistic-optimisticPurposeless-purposefulFinds life meaningless-

meaningfulA loser-a winnerUnhappy-happyWorthless-worthy

Depressed

7.577.576.437.387.247.957.817.056.956.487.867.106.106.576.626.337.106.384.335.293.675.104.866.195.005.815.434.675.103.716.056.145.555.865.434.335.195.715.955.435.715.334.335.434.435.14

5.054.954.434.81

Mean self-ratings

Nondepressed

7.627.646.517.787.628.248.197.787.707.308.327.817.167.707.707.437.947.545.756.695.197.086.817.686.697.357.056.847.005.327.757.817.707.767.316.627.727.738.147.468.247.707.327.597.197.81

8.087.657.847.95

Mean importance ratings

t

0.140.210.271.161.251.291.731.901.912.03*2.12*2.32*2.38*2.44*2.45*2.50*2.61*2.65*2.83**2.88**3.09**3.31**3.39**3.44**3.45**3.45**3.51**3.51**3.57**3.60***3.68**3.79***4.00***4.22***4.31***4.33***4.38***4.53***4.73***4.94***4.97***5.14***5.45***5.51***5.71***5.79***

6.13***6.29***7.25***7.62***

Depressed

7.437.146.487.437.678.198.147.438.106.678.338.056.627.627.678.147.247.435.716.676.577.007.437.146.147.147.436.817.625.867.197.577.338.108.005.678.008.148.007.008.247.867.958.007.437.52

7.407.677.627.33

Nondepressed

7.247.696.147.417.898.418.497.918.087.058.388.226.597.417.277.687.816.765.066.835.437.087.326.816.086.867.227.277.165.387.587.597.357.977.225.657.618.038.227.148.277.707.787.867.007.46

7.627.658.167.46

Note. Except for the trait dimensions of dull-interesting and defensive-nondefensive, the importance ratings of depressed and nondepressed subjectsdid not differ significantly.*p<. 05, two-tailed. ** p < .01, two-tailed. ***p< .001, two-tailed.

require quick and accurate judgments, the dot counting task is alsopredictive of one's general level of success as well as one's generallevel of motivation and productivity. Again, students who performwell on the dot counting task are high in general success, motiva-tion, and productivity, whereas students who perform poorly onthe dot counting task are low on these characteristics.

Following these contrasting cover stories, all subjects were told thatafter each dot display they were to make their best estimate of how many

dots appeared and then enter that estimate into the computer. Subjectswere also told that following their estimate, they would receive feedbackfrom the computer evaluating the accuracy of their judgment. Subjectswere further informed that the feedback they received would tell themwhere they stood on the personality dimension of interest. Thus, sub-jects were instructed "the more accurate you are on the dot countingtask, the more Polite (or Successful) your feedback will indicateyou are."

At this point, subjects were shown a sample 5-point feedback display

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 437

and were told that following each dot estimate, a number on the displaywould start flashing to indicate what their feedback was. (As discussedearlier, a single flashing number constituted an unambiguous feedbackcue.) Subjects were instructed that after receiving a feedback cue in theform of a flashing number, they were to indicate which of the five feed-back cues they received "by simply pressing the number on the numberkeyboard which exactly matches the number of the evaluation you wereadministered." Subjects were then informed that for some of the dotestimates they made, their feedback would take the form of two flashingnumbers instead of one (i.e., an ambiguous feedback cue). Subjects weretold that when this occurred, their task was to "determine which of thetwo flashing numbers is really your feedback . . . After you decidewhich of the two flashing numbers is actually your feedback, we wouldlike you to press the number on the number keyboard which matchesthe number you think is your true feedback." Following a brief proce-dural summary, subjects completed a brief pretask questionnaire (to bedescribed) and then began the dot-counting task.

Dot displays and feedback administrations were equated in the twoexperimental conditions. In actuality, dot displays contained between66 and 255 dots, and because of the extremely brief presentation time(.12 s), subjects were not overly suspicious (as revealed at debriefing) ofthe completely randomized feedback administered by the computer. Inboth experimental conditions, five successive groupings of randomly or-dered feedback were generated by the computer such that one of eachof the five unambiguous feedback cues and one of each of the four am-biguous feedback pairs appeared within each grouping. Thus, acrossthe 45 feedback trials, subjects received five presentations of each of thefive unambiguous feedback types and five presentations of each of thefour ambiguous feedback types. In both experimental conditions, how-ever, randomization was restricted by positioning the Number 3 feed-back cue as the first feedback presentation and by not permitting twoidentical feedback cues to occur in succession.

With the aid of procedural prompts from the computer, subjects self-administered all 45 experimental trials at a self-determined pace. Toassess whether subjects' response times differed across the five grada-tions of unambiguous feedback, elapsed time between feedback onsetand feedback identification was unobtrusively recorded by the com-puter.

Self-schema indexes and manipulation checks. Following the tapedinstructions, subjects were asked to complete a four-item pretask ques-tionnaire. We constructed counterpart questionnaires for each experi-mental condition such that the two questionnaires differed only withregard to the specific trait dimensions addressed (e.g., very successfulvs. very polite).

Two items on each questionnaire jointly served as indexes of theschema. The first asked subjects to "Rate how you generally view your-self on the following trait dimension." Subjects indicated their self-rat-ing on a 5-point scale that was anchored at each point in a manneridentical to the 5-point feedback scale described earlier (with the dele-tion of the prefacing phrase, "You are a person who is"). The identicallabeling of points on the self-rating scale and the feedback scale waspurposeful in that this allowed us to superimpose the two scales to assesswhether a relation existed between the valence of subjects' schemas andthe direction of bias in subjects' encoding of each of the four ambiguousfeedback types.

A second item pertinent to our definition of the schema asked sub-jects to rate how important the condition-relevant trait dimension wasto their view of themselves. Subjects responded on a 5-point scale (1 =This dimension is very important to my view of myself, 5 = This dimen-sion is not at all important to my view of my self). Similar to Study 1, weconsidered depressed and nondepressed groups in each experimentalcondition as holding a schema only if each condition-relevant trait di-mension received a mean importance rating of 3.0 or lower, signifyingthat subjects regarded the trait dimension to be of at least moderateimportance. In addition, to help rule out plausible alternative interpre-tations of our results, we deemed it necessary that subjects not differ

Table 2Beck Depression Inventory Characteristicsfor Each Subject Group: Study 2

A^perGroup cell M SD

Depressed-Schema-discriminating 27 18.89 5.42Depressed-Schema-nondiscriminating 17 17.41 5.69Nondepressed-Schema-discriminating 21 0.43 0.51Nondepressed-Schema-nondiscriminating 19 0.37 0.50

across the two conditions in the importance ascribed to each trait di-mension.

The two remaining items on each pretask questionnaire served asindirect manipulation checks (phrased indirectly to offset heighteningsubjects' suspicions). The first of these asked subjects to rate how wellthey expected to perform on the dot-counting task that would follow.Subjects responded on a 5-point scale (1 = Very well, 5 = Very poorly).We predicted that if subjects in each condition actually regarded theexperimental task to be a measure of their tendency to be successfulor polite (as described in the cover story), then subject's performanceexpectancies should correlate with subject's self-ratings on these abili-ties.

As a second manipulation check, we asked subjects to rate how im-portant it was for them to perform well on the dot-counting task thatwould follow. Subjects again responded on a 5-point scale (1 = Veryimportant, 5 = Not at all important). As an indication that our coverstories were equally plausible in the two experimental conditions, wereasoned that subjects should not differ across the two conditions in howimportant it was to perform well.

Summary recall measure. On completing the dot-counting task, sub-jects in each experimental condition filled out a bogus "Social Percep-tion Inventory" that had been constructed to serve as a filler task forthe recall measure that immediately followed. Subjects, on the average,completed the seven-item filler task in approximately 4 min. As ourinterest in subjects' summary recall was limited to unambiguous feed-back trials, subjects were instructed to limit their responses on the recallmeasure to only those feedback trials that had consisted of one flashingnumber. For each experimental condition, the five relevant unambigu-ous feedback types were listed, and subjects placed their estimate ofhow many of each unambiguous feedback type they had received in theblanks provided. In addition, subjects were informed that a total of 25unambiguous feedback stimuli had been administered, and thus theirrecall total should similarly sum to 25. On completing the recall mea-sure, subjects were thoroughly debriefed.

Results

Subject characteristics. Group means and standard devia-tions for scores on the BDI, as well as cell sizes, are presentedin Table 2. A Group (depressed vs. nondepressed) X Condition(schema-discriminating vs. schema-nondiscriminating) two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) performed on subjects' BDIscores revealed only the expected group main effect, F( 1, 80) =398.50, p < .001. Subsequent t tests confirmed the presence ofsignificantly higher BDI scores for depressed subjects comparedwith nondepressed subjects in both the schema-discriminatingcondition, f(80) = 12.72, p < .001, and the schema-nondiscrim-inating condition, f(80) = 15.64, p < .001.

As initial analyses of our main dependent measures indicatedno sex differences, the results reported in the following sectionsare collapsed across the sex variable.

438 DYK.MAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

Table 3Mean Ratings of Self-Schema Indexes and ManipulationChecks as a Function of Depression Status andExperimental Condition: Study 2

Group

Experimental condition

Schema- Schema-discriminating nondiscriminating

Self-rating"Depressed 2.89Nondepressed 1.71

Importance of trait dimensionto self-view

Depressed 2.44Nondepressed 2.52

How well subjects expected toperform"

Depressed 3.22Nondepressed 2.14

Importance of performing wellDepressed 2.82Nondepressed 2.86

1.881.84

2.292.26

2.772.53

2.822.68

Note. Lower numeric scores indicate higher or more positive ratings.a Statistically significant interaction.

Self-schema indexes and manipulation checks. Consistentwith Study 1 's results, we predicted that depressed and nonde-pressed subjects would differ in their self-ratings in the schema-discriminating condition but not in the schema-nondiscrimi-nating condition. A two-way ANOVA performed on subjects'self-ratings revealed the predicted Group X Condition interac-tion, F(l, 80) = 16.80, p < .001. Mean self-ratings for eachgroup are presented in the first 2 rows of Table 3. Pairwise com-parisons revealed that nondepressed subjects rated themselvessignificantly higher than did depressed subjects on the compos-ite trait dimension (i.e., successful, motivated, productive) pre-sented in the schema-discriminating condition, ?(80) = 6.46,p < .001, but that group differences in self-ratings were nonsig-nificant on the composite trait dimension (i.e., polite, consider-ate, courteous) presented in the schema-nondiscriminatingcondition, ?(80) = . 19.

For a trait dimension to qualify as a schema, we required thatit be at least moderately important to a group's self-view, asreflected by a mean importance rating of 3.0 or lower on the 5-point scale used. As indicated in the second 2 rows of Table 3,this criterion was met by each participating subject group. Inaddition, to rule out interpretations of our results as being dueto the differential importance of the trait dimensions used, weconducted a Group X Condition ANOVA on subjects' impor-tance ratings. No significant interactions or main effectsemerged from this analysis (all Fs < 1), and all pairwise compar-isons both across and within conditions were similarly nonsig-nificant (all Fs < 1).

As part of a manipulation check, we reasoned that if subjectsactually regarded the experimental task to be a measure of theirpoliteness or successfulness, as described in our cover story,then how well subjects expected to perform on the dot-countingtask should correlate with their self-ratings on these respectivedimensions. This correlation was evident in two ways. First,across all experimental conditions, subjects' performance ex-

pectancies were highly correlated with their self-ratings,r(82) = .61, p < .001. Second, a two-way Group X ConditionANOVA conducted on subjects' performance expectanciesyielded a significant interaction, F(l, 80) = 6.70, p < .02, thatparalleled the significant two-way interaction obtained for sub-jects' self-ratings (the parallel form of these interactions beingconfirmed by a nonsignificant Group X Condition X Ratingtriple interaction, F < 1). The mean performance expectanciesof each group are presented in the third 2 rows of Table 3.

As an indication that our cover story was equally plausible inthe two experimental conditions, we reasoned that subjects inthe two conditions should not differ with regard to how impor-tant it was for them to perform well. A two-way Group X Condi-tion ANOVA performed on subjects' ratings of how important itwas for them to perform well revealed the preferred absence ofa significant interaction (F < 1) as well as the preferred absenceof significant main and simple effects (Fs < 1), both across andwithin conditions. Group means can be found in the last 2 rowsof Table 3.

Encoding of ambiguous feedback. Prior to these analyses,each subject's feedback identifications were assigned values of1 through 5 for identifications ranging from very successful (orvery polite) through very unsuccessful (or very rude), respec-tively. Then, for ambiguous and unambiguous trials taken sepa-rately, these individual values were summed and averaged. Theresulting means or "identification scores" served as compositemeasures of a given subject's identification of ambiguous andunambiguous feedback. For the analyses discussed in the fol-lowing paragraphs, it should be noted that the unbiased ex-pected value averaging across all ambiguous feedback trialsis 3.0.

To test our hypothesis that group differences in the processingof feedback would be more pronounced under ambiguous con-ditions, we performed a Group X Condition X Feedback Clar-ity (ambiguous vs. unambiguous) repeated measures ANOVAon subjects' mean identification scores, with feedback clarityserving as the repeated measures variable. The three-way inter-action proved significant, F(l, 80) = 5.82, p < .02. To analyzethe three-way interaction, we conducted separate two-wayGroup X Condition ANOVAS on each class of feedback. Theseanalyses revealed a nonsignificant interaction, F(l, 80) = 2.32,as well as nonsignificant main effects (Fs < 1) for unambiguousfeedback, in contrast to a significant interaction for ambiguousfeedback, F(l, 80) = 5.07, p < .03. The nonsignificant effectsobtained for unambiguous feedback support the view that feed-back of this type is nonconducive to differential processing bydepressed and nondepressed subjects.

The significant Group X Condition interaction for ambigu-ous feedback, on the other hand, suggests that feedback of thistype is amenable to differential processing, but only under cer-tain conditions. That is, pairwise comparisons revealed that de-pressed subjects encoded ambiguous feedback more negativelythan did nondepressed subjects in the schema-discriminatingcondition, ?(80) = 2.88, p < .01, whereas depressed and nonde-pressed groups did not reliably differ in the schema-nondis-criminating condition, t(SO) = .48. The patterning of this inter-action (displayed in Table 4) coupled with the absence ofa significant depressed-nondepressed main effect acrossexperimental conditions, F(l, 80) = 2.35, suggest that depres-sive negativity in encoding is not characteristic, but rather de-

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 439

Table 4Mean Identification Scores for Ambiguous Feedbackas a Function of Depression Status andExperimental Condition: Study 2

Condition

Group

DepressedMSD

NondepressedMSD

Schema-discriminating

2.890.25

2.720.16

Schema-nondiscriminating

2.780.18

2.820.21

Note. The unbiased expected value is 3.0, the most positive attainablemean value is 2.5, and the most negative attainable mean value is 3.5.

pends on depressed individuals having a more negative schemathan nondepressed individuals with regard to the task at hand.

The data in Table 4 are also relevant to the normativeness ofdepressed and nondepressed subjects' encoding of ambiguousfeedback. Initial evidence against the characteristic processingpatterns proposed earlier is the fact that no subject group in thisstudy was realistic (i.e., unbiased) in their encoding of ambigu-ous feedback. That is, one-sample t tests revealed that all groupsshowed significant positive biases relative to the unbiased ex-pected value of 3.0 (all ps < .05), with depressed subjects inthe schema-discriminating condition being the least positivelybiased group, nondepressed subjects in the same condition be-ing the most positively biased group, and depressed and nonde-pressed subjects in the schema-nondiscriminating conditionboth falling in between.

In direct support of schematic processing, on the other hand,is the fact that the rank ordering of means in Table 4 corre-sponds closely to the rank ordering of means for subjects' self-ratings (i.e., self-schemas) as displayed in the first 2 rows of Ta-ble 3. This comparable rank ordering suggests that for bothdepressed and nondepressed subjects, the more positive the self-schema, the more positive the degree of bias. The correspon-dence between subjects' self-ratings and degree of bias was alsosupported at a more idiographic level by a significant positivecorrelation between individual subjects' self-ratings and theirmean identification scores for ambiguous feedback, r(82) =.46, p < .001. Hence, on both the group and idiographic level,degree of bias in the encoding of ambiguous feedback appearsdirectly related to the relative positioning of the self-schema.

In addition to positing a direct relation between degree ofbias and the relative positioning of the schema, schematic pro-cessing would also predict that both depressed and nonde-pressed subjects alike would show evidence of positively biased,negatively biased, and unbiased processing, with the directionof bias for each group converging toward that group's schema.An internal analysis of the encoding patterns of depressed andnondepressed subjects in each experimental condition allowedus to assess whether this prediction obtained. For each of thefour ambiguous feedback pairs administered in this study, wecomputed the average amount by which each subject group de-viated from an unbiased response (i.e., the average amount by

which responses to the 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5 feedback pairsdeviated from the unbiased values of 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5, re-spectively). For each ambiguous feedback pair, mean deviationsfrom an unbiased response and the direction of those deviationsare listed in Figure 1. Also mapped onto Figure 1 is the meanself-rating (i.e., self-schema) of each subject group. By inspec-tion, the data displayed in Figure 1 show a pattern in whichboth depressed and nondepressed subjects in each experimentalcondition both positively and negatively biased their encodingof ambiguous feedback, with this biasing occurring in the direc-tion of each group's respective schema. Interestingly, further in-spection of Figure 1 indicates that for each group, the greaterthe difference between the schema and the feedback pair beingprocessed, the greater the magnitude (hence, the probability) ofbias. This tendency for all groups to probabilistically bias theirencoding of ambiguous feedback in the direction of their re-spective schemas was supported by a highly significant lineartrend in the deviation means, F(l, 80) = 313.99, p < .001, andby the absence of a significant Group X Linear Trend interac-tion (F < 1). Moreover, as the lettered values in Figure 1 indi-cate, a number of the individual deviation means of both de-pressed and nondepressed subjects alike reached significance(as revealed by one-sample t tests), indicating that both subjectgroups showed significant positive biases and significant nega-tive biases in their encoding of various individual ambiguousfeedback pairs.5 Unbiased encoding also typified each subjectgroup and, in further support of schematic processing, unbi-ased encoding for three of the four subject groups occurred atthe point where a particular ambiguous feedback pair and agroup's schema were most nearly matched in valence.

Response latencies to unambiguous feedback. To reduce ran-dom variance in response latencies attributable to the initialnovelty of the task, we did not include subjects' response laten-cies to the first 5 unambiguous feedback trials in the final dataanalysis.

Mean response latencies to each unambiguous feedback typeas well as each group's mean self-ratings (i.e., self-schemas) aredepicted in Figure 2. To analyze the patterning of means in Fig-ure 2, we conducted a 4 X 5 (Group X Feedback Type) repeatedmeasures ANOVA on subjects' response latencies, with feedbacktype serving as the repeated measures variable. In contrast to anonsignificant group effect (F < 1), the quadratic trend acrossthe repeated measures variable was highly significant, P(l,80) = 33.92, p < .001. To determine whether this quadratictrend reflected the occurrence of schematic processing, we in-spected the patterning of means for each subject group. Instrong support of schematic processing, this inspection revealedthat for depressed and nondepressed subjects in the schema-nondiscriminating condition, and for nondepressed subjects in

5 Note that "significant" negative biases were not displayed by de-pressed subjects in the schema-nondiscriminating condition or by non-depressed subjects in the schema-discriminating condition. We pointout that such attenuation in negative biases is entirely consistent withthe schematic processing view as the schemas of these groups in theseconditions most closely matched the most positive feedback pair admin-istered in this study. On the basis of the pattern of data, we conjecturethat administering even more positive ambiguous feedback (e.g., supersuccessful-very successful) would have resulted in significant negativebiases in these conditions, as well.

440 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

A.

FeedbackPair Nondepressed Depressed

INondepressives'

Self-schema(1.71)

(2.89)-^r-Depressives JSelf-schema

+.320

-.130

-.004

+.4'24°

+.452

+.270

+.292

B.

f ggdfoflClC

Pair Nondepressed Depressed

Nondepressives'Self-schema

(1.84)

(1-8?) 7Depressives1

Self-schema

— .174•

+.426

-.124

+.194

+.394

+.406

Figure 1. Mean deviations from an unbiased response for each ambiguous feedback pair. (A = schema-discriminating condition; B = schema-nondiscriminating condition. Negative (—) and positive (+) deviationscores represent negative and positive biases, respectively. Superscript a signifies p < .05, one-tailed; super-script b, p < .05, two-tailed; and superscript c, p < .001, two-tailed.)

the schema-discriminating condition, response times were, infact, fastest to the feedback stimulus lying closest to eachgroup's schema and progressively slower to feedback stimuli ly-ing increasingly farther from each group's schema. The groupthat did not follow a schematic processing pattern, in the strictsense, was depressed subjects in the schema-discriminatingcondition. We would expect this group to respond fastest to theNumber 3 feedback stimulus as the Number 3 stimulus is theclosest match to their schema. Instead, this group respondedfastest to the Number 2 stimulus, as did the other groups (F < 1,for the Group X Quadratic Trend interaction). It is neverthelessnoteworthy that except for the reverse ordering of these twopoints, depressed subjects in the schema-discriminating condi-tion did conform to the general quadratic trend indicative of aschematic processing effect.

Across the four subject groups, the marginal means for reac-tion times to the Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 unambiguous feed-back types were 2.39, 2.16, 2.26, 2.37, and 2.58 s, respectively.The tendency for all groups to conform to this quadratic trendis strong evidence that neither depressed nor nondepressed sub-jects were characteristically biased or unbiased in their responselatencies to unambiguous feedback.

Summary recall. For each subject, we calculated a summaryrecall score by multiplying the number of each unambiguousfeedback type recalled, that is, very successful (and very polite)through very unsuccessful (and very rude), by values of 1-5,respectively. These products were then summed across the fiveunambiguous feedback types, with the resulting total serving asa summary recall score. As subjects were instructed that their

total recall of unambiguous feedback stimuli should sum to 25,a summary recall total of 75 represented accurate or unbiasedrecall.

A two-way Group X Condition ANOVA performed on sub-jects' summary recall scores revealed that neither of the maineffects, nor their interaction, proved significant (all ps > .20). Inaddition, one-sample t tests revealed that only depressed sub-jects in the schema-discriminating condition deviated signifi-cantly, and in a negatively biased direction, from the unbiasedvalue of 75, tf26) = 2A2,p< .05. The absence of positive recallbiases for any subject group (as one would predict on the basisof the positively valenced schemas held by all subject groups)and the absence of a depressed-nondepressed main effect forrecall across experimental conditions (F < 1) are evidence, re-spectively, that neither schematic nor characteristic processingbiases occurred.

Task performance. As pointed out earlier, dot displays wereequated across conditions. To assess whether obtained encodingeffects were possibly related to the differential dot-counting ac-curacy of the different subject groups, we summed subjects' dotestimates across trials and subjected the resulting totals to atwo-way Group X Condition ANOVA. No significant effectsemerged from this analysis.

General Discussion

In two important respects, our findings strongly challenge theview that depressed and nondepressed individuals process in-formation in characteristically different ways. First, depressed

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 441

oLUCO

COUJOzLU

UJCOzoa.COUJoc

<UJ

2.7

2.6

2.5

2.4

2.3

2.2 '

2.1

2 . 0 '

*

V

?i

O NONDEPRESSED• DEPRESSED

......... SCHEMA - NONDISCRIMINATING

I, . .i i i i i1 2 3 4 5

VERY SOMEWHAT EQUALLY SOMEWHAT VERYSUCCESSFUL SUCCESSFUL SUCCESSFUL UNSUCCESSFUL UNSUCCESSFUL(POLITE) (POLITE) (POLITE) (RUDE) (RUDE)

ANDUNSUCCESSFUL

(RUDE)

FEEDBACK TYPEFigure 2. Mean response latencies to each unambiguous feedback type for depressed and nondepressedsubjects in each experimental condition. (The mean self-schema rating of each subject group has beenpositioned to scale on the horizontal axis.)

subjects were not characteristically negative in their encoding ofambiguous feedback relative to nondepressed subjects. Rather,consistent with a schematic processing view of depressive andnondepressive cognition, depressed-nondepressed encodingdifferences appeared to depend on these groups' holding differ-ent schemas with regard to the task at hand. Second, neitherdepressed nor nondepressed subjects were characteristically bi-ased or unbiased relative to a normative baseline. Rather, bothdepressed and nondepressed individuals engaged in schematicprocessing that, in turn, led to biased and unbiased outcomesfor both groups alike.

Schematic processing of ambiguous feedback by both de-pressed and nondepressed subjects was demonstrated in twoimportant ways. First, across all ambiguous feedback pairscombined, schematic processing was supported by a close align-ment between the valence of each group's schema and theamount and direction of bias displayed by each group. Specifi-

cally, the more positive a group's schema, the greater theamount of positive bias displayed by that group. Second, ana-lyzing each ambiguous feedback type separately, we found thatschematic processing led to positively biased, negatively biased,and unbiased outcomes among both depressed and nonde-pressed subjects alike, with the direction and magnitude of eachoutcome being largely a function of the match between the va-lence of a group's schema and the net valence of the particularfeedback pair being processed.

Interestingly, our finding that depressed subjects in theschema-discriminating condition were significantly less biasedoverall in their encoding of ambiguous feedback than were non-depressed subjects in this same condition is reminiscent of thedepressive realism-nondepressive optimism results that havebeen obtained in a number of previous studies. However, giventhat across conditions we found a close correspondence betweenthe valence of each group's schema and the amount of positive

442 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

bias displayed by each group, we attribute this result to sche-matic processing rather than to any kind of characteristic ten-dency for either group to process information in either a biasedor unbiased way. Phrased in terms of Cronbach's (1955; Gage& Cronbach, 1955) distinction between stereotypic and differ-ential accuracy, we hold that depressed subjects in the schema-discriminating condition were the most accurate group by vir-tue of the fact that their schema-based stereotypic responseswere a better match to the average feedback value presentedthan were the schema-based stereotypic responses of any othergroup. Neither depressed nor nondepressed subjects, however,displayed differential accuracy in terms of being able to flexiblyvary their judgments to achieve accuracy across changing stim-ulus conditions (i.e., across different ambiguous feedback pairs,or across different experimental conditions, see also Coyne &Gotlib, 1983).

The occurrence of schematic processing on the part of bothdepressed and nondepressed subjects was also supported byeach group's pattern of response latencies to unambiguousfeedback. That is, for three out of the four subject groups, re-sponse latencies were fastest to the feedback stimulus nearest toeach group's schema and progressively slower to feedback stim-uli positioned increasingly farther from each group's schema.Depressed subjects in the schema-discriminating condition,who were the exception to this pattern, also showed a generalschematic processing effect, but instead of responding fastest tothe feedback stimulus that was nearest to their schema, thisgroup responded fastest to the adjacent or same feedback stimu-lus as did the other three groups. This exception raises the possi-bility that the response latencies of depressed individuals maynot differ from those of nondepressed individuals with regardto feedback that is clear and unambiguous. More broadly, theschematic latency pattern displayed by each subject group high-lights the importance of considering the juxtaposition of theschema and the valence of the information being processed inattempts to accurately predict depressed and nondepressed in-dividuals' response times to hedonically charged events.

In contrast to the schematic processing biases that typifieddepressed and nondepressed subjects' encoding of ambiguousfeedback and response latencies to unambiguous feedback, nei-ther schematic nor characteristic processing biases typified ei-ther group's summary recall of unambiguous feedback.Whereas this may suggest that depressed and nondepressed in-dividuals are unbiased in these respects, at least two method-ological considerations caution against this interpretation.First, studies that have obtained depressed-nondepresseddifferences in recall have required subjects to make a singleglobal estimate of the amount of positive feedback they received(e.g., DeMonbreun & Craighead, 1977; Nelson & Craighead,1977; Wener & Rehm, 1975). By contrast, subjects in this studywere requested to recall how many of each of the five feedbacktypes they had been administered, which in turn may have ledsubjects to engage in a more deliberate and detailed searchthrough memory. Second, subjects in this study were adminis-tered feedback that was more strongly and directly evaluativethan that used in previous studies (e.g., "You are a person whois very unsuccessful"). Conceivably, highly evaluative feedbackis more deeply encoded and hence is less conducive to biasedrecall than is less evaluative feedback. Until the impact of thesemethodological variations is better understood, a cautious ap-

proach appears warranted in interpreting our present recallfindings.

Overall, then, our results provide compelling evidence thatboth depressed and nondepressed individuals engage in sche-matic processing. Worth noting is that depressed-nondepressedencoding differences in the schema-discriminating conditionproved specific to the encoding of ambiguous but not unambig-uous feedback. Although hardly a surprising finding given theclarity of our unambiguous feedback, we mention this findingto point out that even when the schemas of depressed and non-depressed individuals differ markedly, the nature of the stimu-lus material may be such that differential biasing tendencies aregreatly constricted. Additional research is needed to morestrongly test this principle along a continuum of stimulus ambi-guity. Looking beyond this study's emphasis on the schema'simmediate effects on processing, further research is also neededto determine if the schemata studied here are best construedas "episodic" or "vulnerability" schemata (Kuiper, Olinger, &MacDonald, 1988), the former being a concomitant of the de-pressed state and the latter being an antecedent of this state.

Toward a Reformulation of Beck's Schema Theoryof Depression

Although Beck's (1967, 1976; Beck et al., 1979) theory hasguided a great deal of research, the core information processingpostulates of this theory have changed little, if at all, over thepast 20 years (see, however, Kuiper et al., 1988, for a proposedextension). In particular, by comparison to relevant theoreticaland empirical advances that have occurred in cognitive and so-cial psychology, Beck's theory provides neither a clear nor a con-sistent picture of how schematic processing operates in de-pressed and nondepressed individuals. By contrast, our find-ings, which were predicted from and are in agreement withcontemporary work On schematic processing, more clearly illu-minate the operating principles of schematic processing in de-pressed and nondepressed individuals, and hence have impor-tant implications for a more precise formulation of Beck'stheory.

Although Beck (1967; Beck et al., 1979) alluded to the factthat both depressed and nondepressed individuals engage inschematic processing, his writings can also be interpreted assuggesting that schematic processing leads to characteristicallydifferent outcomes for these two groups (as described earlier,depressed individuals process information more negativelythan do nondepressed individuals, and depressed individualsare nonnormatively negative, whereas nondepressed individu-als are normatively accurate). That these characteristicallydifferent outcomes can arise from each group using the sameprocessing strategy further implies that either (a) schematicprocessing operates differently in depressed and nondepressedindividuals, or (b) schematic processing operates similarly inthe two groups, but its operation in each group gives rise to onlyone type of processing outcome.

Our findings not only contradict these implications but alsosuggest a heuristically more precise formulation of schematicprocessing in depressed and nondepressed individuals. Specifi-cally, our findings strongly suggest that schematic processing op-erates similarly in depressed and nondepressed people, in thatboth groups, in quite similar ways, biased their encoding of am-

SCHEMATIC BIASES AND DEPRESSION 443

biguous feedback in the direction of their respective schemas.In addition, we point out that because of this similarity in oper-ation, both groups should be capable of the processing out-comes that are inherent to schematic processing. On this basis,we would expect the occurrence of positively biased, negativelybiased, and unbiased outcomes in both depressed and nonde-pressed individuals alike, with the specific direction and magni-tude of each outcome depending on the relative feedback-to-schema match. Moreover, with both depressed and nonde-pressed subjects similarly encoding ambiguous information inline with their respective schemas, we would expect equivalentencoding by these groups in situations in which their schemasare equal in valence, but nonequivalent encoding in situationsin which their schemas are different in valence.

This analysis bears directly on an intriguing issue raised byHollon and Garber (1988; see also Abramson & Martin, 1981).They asked whether depressed-nondepressed differences incognitive outcomes (i.e., inferences, judgments, beliefs) are dueto the two groups relying on different information processingstrategies (i.e., a process difference) or to the two groups relyingon the same information processing strategy but differing in thecontent of their schemas (i.e., a content difference). Our resultsprovide strong support for a content difference (i.e., encodingoutcomes were largely a function of the valence or content ofeach group's schema) but no support for a process difference(i.e., both groups relied on schematic processing as their encod-ing strategy). This distinction underscores the point that withspecific regard to schematic processing, there appears to benothing "spooky" or uniquely different about the way de-pressed people think and, hence, nothing unique about the out-comes that this thinking can give rise to. Rather, in at least thislimited case, depressive cognition appears subject to the sameinferential rules and biases that characterize human cognitionin general (see also Abramson & Martin, 1981; Kuiper & Hig-gins, 1985).

More recent work in our labs afforded the opportunity to testand successfully replicate key aspects of the present study acrossboth similar (Dykman, Horowitz, Abramson, Usher, & Al-bright, 1988; Dykman & Abramson, 1988) and different (Al-bright, Alloy, Barch, & Dykman, 1988) paradigms. To the ex-tent that these findings are indicative of the encoding patterns ofdepressed and nondepressed individuals, we view these findingsand the schematic processing principles they implicate as possi-ble points of departure for a reformulation of Beck's (1967;Beck et al., 1979) theory. For the conceptual and heuristic clar-ity it would offer, we eagerly await such a reformulation.6

Further Implications

In this section, we discuss some additional implications ofour schematic processing formulation of depressive and nonde-pressive cognition. One implication relates to clarifying thepurpose of cognitive therapy. Specifically, descriptions of de-pressive thinking as idiosyncratic, faulty, dysfunctional, dis-torted, and so forth, imply that depressed and nondepressedindividuals think differently from each other, and that the goalof cognitive therapy should be to train depressed people to thinkas nondepressed people do. Contrary to this view, however, ourfindings suggest that with regard to schematic processing, de-pressed and nondepressed people already think alike, and that

what causes depressed individuals to make more negative judg-ments than nondepressed individuals is the more negative con-tent of their schemas. By this view, effecting positive changes indepressed individuals' schemas should provide the best leveragefor effecting corresponding positive changes in their judgments.

In this study, delineating the content domains in which de-pressed and nondepressed subjects held equivalent or differentschemas proved instrumental in understanding the nature ofdepressed-nondepressed encoding differences. As such, thiswork underscores the utility of a content-domain approach tothe study of depressive cognition (e.g., Anderson, Horowitz, &French, 1983; Derry & Kuiper, 1981; Hammen, Marks, Mayol,& de Mayo, 1985; Metalsky, Halberstadt, & Abramson, 1987;Zuroff & Mongrain, 1987). In addition, the wide range ofschema-discriminability evident in the trait dimensions ofStudy 1 suggests to us that the robustness of depressed-nonde-pressed processing differences may well depend on the discrimi-nability of the stimulus information chosen for study, withgroup differences becoming less robust as more schema-nondis-criminating content is introduced into the processing task. Ifborne out by future research, this would further illustrate thathow depressed individuals process information depends in parton the characteristics of the information under study (cf. Derry& Kuiper, 1981; Greenberg & Alloy, 1987; Ingram & Reed,1986; Kihlstrom & Nasby, 1981).

Because moderately depressed college students comprisedour subject sample, the generalizability of these findings to aseverely or clinically depressed sample needs to be demon-strated. It is possible, for example, that a number of trait dimen-sions used in Study 1 would be more highly discriminating ifnondepressed subjects' self-ratings were compared againstthose of a more severely depressed sample. In addition, to theextent that more severely depressed subjects are characterizedby more extremely negative self-schemas (Kuiper et al., 1988),we might expect such subjects to show a greater degree of nega-tive bias in their encoding of ambiguous feedback. In the ex-treme case, the logic of schematic processing suggests that a se-verely depressed person with a profoundly negative schemashould show pervasive negative biasing tendencies, as almost allinformation encountered by that person would be more positivethan his or her extremely negative schema. Note that even inthis case one need not invoke the notion of characteristic pro-cessing biases to explain such pervasive negativity. Schematicprocessing is a theoretically more precise concept that can sub-sume such cases.

An idea worth considering is that our methodology may havecalled forth schemas in depressed and nondepressed subjectsthat they otherwise .may not have adopted. In this sense, de-pressed subjects could prove to be characteristically negativerelative to nondepressed subjects if, across situations, they con-sistently call forth schema-discriminating schemas. Whetherdepressive (or nondepressive) cognition is guided by predomi-nant schemas (i.e., "pan-schemas") and whether identical situa-

6 In a more recent theoretical article, Beck (1987) stated that ". . .depressive constructions are predominantly 'schema-driven' ratherthan 'data-driven', as in normals" (p. 14). We point out that our resultschallenge this assumption as well (i.e., our results suggest that both de-pressive and nondepressive constructions are schema-driven, hence giv-ing both groups the capability for bias and accuracy).

444 DYKMAN, ABRAMSON, ALLOY, AND HARTLAGE

tions actually call forth identical schemas in depressed and non-depressed individuals are important questions in need of test.

Final Comments on Depressive Realism

For almost a decade now, depressive realism has been an in-triguing yet poorly understood phenomenon. Whereas earlywork on depressive realism centered on demonstrations of therealism phenomenon (e.g., Alloy & Abramson, 1979, 1982;Lewinsohn et al., 1980), recent work has focused on laying outits boundary conditions (e.g., Benassi & Mahler, 1985; Martin,Abramson, & Alloy, 1984; Vazquez, 1987). This study furtheradvances our understanding of the realism phenomenon by pro-viding evidence for a mechanism (i.e., schematic processing)that can be used to predict not only the occurrence of depressiverealism, but also the more general occurrence of normative andnonnormative inferences on the part of both depressed andnondepressed individuals alike.

Interestingly, the mechanism of schematic processing mayprovide insight into various patterns of findings, and inconsis-tencies in findings, that now comprise the depressive realismliterature. For example, depressive realism effects may in partbe a function of the closer match for depressed individuals thanfor nondepressed individuals between the content of the schemaand the content of the information being judged (see also Ab-ramson & Alloy, 1981; Coyne & Gotlib, 1983). Similarly, mixedfindings of depressive realism and nondepressive realism thatspot the literature may in part reflect the mixed nature of thefeedback-to-schema match in various studies, as could resultfrom variability across studies in schema or information va-lences. Last, schematic processing provides a coherent frame-work for understanding even such extremely counterintuitiveand heretofore unreported outcomes as depressive optimismand nondepressive pessimism.

As a final note, it is important to point out that althoughdepressed and nondepressed individuals alike appear to engagein schematic processing, it need not follow that these twogroups have an equal likelihood over the long run of being bi-ased and unbiased (or inaccurate and accurate). Currently, infact, the research literature appears weighted in favor of de-pressed individuals being the less biased group (see Alloy & Ab-ramson, 1988). If confirmed by future research, this trendcould reflect the fact that presently unknown experiential ordispositional factors have led depressed individuals to developschemas that, on the average, are better approximations to labo-ratory and real world events than are the schemas of nonde-pressed individuals. It is also possible that depressed individualsmay turn out to be the less biased group for reasons that areunrelated to the content of their schemas. That is, depressedand nondepressed individuals may differ along other dimen-sions (e.g., other information processing strategies not exam-ined in this study, motivational factors, or both) in ways thatgive depressed individuals a processing advantage over nonde-pressed individuals. In sum, although being equally capable ofbiased and unbiased encoding via schematic processing, the rel-ative frequency with which depressed and nondepressed peopleare biased or unbiased in the long run may well depend on fac-tors that go beyond this equivalence in capability.

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Received May 19,1987Revision received May 2,1988

Accepted July 12,1988 •