Cognitive influences on perceived change in social support, motivation, and symptoms of depression

Abstract

AbstractIn settings ranging from informal conversation to medical interviews and surveys, people are often asked to judge changes in subjective states that are important to them, such as perceived social support, motivation to cope with a negative life event, and symptoms of depression. How accurate are such reports, and are there theories of cognitive processes that can predict the most likely types of misperception? To address these questions, self‐report survey data were collected from 224 recently unemployed adults. The measures assessed current subjective states of self and social environment at two times, separated by 4 months. Among the results, persons with high self‐esteem were particularly likely to underestimate changes for the worse between the two survey waves–evidence of an optimistic response bias. When the dimension being judged was unstable and ambiguous, people were more likely to overestimate improvement–evidence of an optimistic response style. The findings were evaluated in terms of alternate theories of cognitive bias and in terms of implications for subsequent studies and application.