Chapter 19 - Reassurance Seeking and Negative Feedback Seeking

Abstract

The risk factor research approach elaborated by Kraemer and colleagues provides a method for systematically evaluating the status of a proposed risk factor through increasingly stringent empirical studies. By examining research on excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) and negative feedback seeking (NFS) within this context, the quality of the causal claims made about these proposed risk factors are tested, and areas in need of further research are identified. The study of ERS as a risk factor for depression grew from Coyne's initial presentation of an interpersonal description of depression, which described a process in which depressed individuals behave in a way that elicits negative information from the environment that then strengthens their depression. NFS—the opposite of reassurance seeking—has also been associated with depression. Depressive individuals actively seek negative feedback. Self-verification theory proposes that individuals are motivated to maintain consistent self-views, and that they will actively solicit, attend to, and recall feedback that confirms their self views. Additionally, individuals are more likely to believe feedback that they find to be self-verifying. The description of causal models with specific terminology clearly specifies the proposed pathways from the risk factor to the disorder, which can help to clarify the role of ERS and NFS in depression.